170 



proceedings given. Whether the Society actually ceased to 

 exist at that period is not precisely known, but Dr. Hutton 

 and other authorities are of opinion that it did not till 1688.* 

 The minute-book in the British Museum has no entry after 

 the 6th November, 1686. For some time, both previously 

 and subsequently to the last note in the minute-book, it would 

 appear from the letters and other communications made by 

 several of its members directly to the Royal Society, that its 

 meetings were few and irregular : even so early as the 10th of 

 August, 1685, we read thus in the Secretary's letter to the 

 Royal Society enclosing the minutes : — ' Our company of 

 late has been very thin, and people's heads so much dulled 

 with politics, that next meeting, I believe, we shall adjourn 

 till the term,' 



" The unsettled state of this country in 1687 and 1688 

 caused a complete rupture of all society, public as well as pri- 

 vate, and several of the principal members of the Philosophi- 

 cal Society removed from Dublin. 



" The subjects entertained by this Society, during the first 

 four years after its establishment, may be considered under the 

 following heads: Mathematics and Physics; Polite Litera- 

 ture ; History and Antiquities ; and Medical Science, includ- 

 ing Anatomy, Zoology, Physiology, and Chemistry. And 

 with some pains we have arranged, under their respective 

 denominations, the following list of the principal subjects, 

 together with the names of their authors, as recorded by the 

 DubHn Philosophical Society during the early years of its 

 existence : 



" MATHEMATICS AND PHYSICS. 

 " Mr. W, MoLYNEAUx — De apparente Magnitudine Solis.— Ex- 

 planation of the Volution of Concentric Circles. — On Telescopic 

 Sights. — On the viewing of Pictures in Miniature with the Tele- 

 scope. — Calculations on the Solar Eclipse. — An Essay on Crysta- 



* Ilutton's Mathematical Dictionary, vol. ii. p. 61. 



