38 Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy. 



f erred to as in preparation in the Report of 1869. For carrying it 

 out to its present measure of success, I am mainly indebted to Mr. 

 Burchett, head master of the National Art Training Schools at South 

 Kensington, and, through him, to Mr. George M. Atkinson, an Examiner 

 of the same Department, who has been kind enough to furnish me with 

 valuable suggestions both as to material and manipulation. 



" Por the purposes of study, as well as for facility of arrangement 

 and economy of space, casts in paper, of adequate 'strength, are much 

 preferable to reproductions in plaster or metal. To enable the student 

 to give an undivided attention to such objects, it is necessary that they 

 should be easily moved, so as to be placed in convenient lights and 

 points of view. The difficulty of so dealing with heavy masses has 

 greatly detracted from the value, for practical purposes, of the in- 

 scribed stones, which have, from time to time, been brought from their 

 sites in the country, and placed in public and private museums. Any 

 one undertaking the systematic study of such a collection, must be 

 prepared to move considerable weights, must work under various in- 

 conveniences of posture, and submit to frequent interruptions depen- 

 dent on changes of light and shade. The employment of paper dupli- 

 cates, while affording entire freedom from these disadvantages, with the 

 additional facility of a surface possessing uniformity of colour, will 

 also, it is hoped, dispense with the temptation to further disturbance of 

 the inscribed monuments still occupying their ancient sites. 



" The possibility of obtaining any number of duplicates in paper, 

 and of assembling, in one light and manageable collection, examples of 

 all the legends extant, leads me to hope that the Council of the Royal 

 Irish Academy will recommend the Academy to accept the donation 

 which I propose to make of the original paper moulds of the inscrip- 

 tions enumerated in the list annexed, as the nucleus of a paper-cast 

 Inscriptional Museum, on the understanding that the reproduction of 

 the moulds in plaster or metal, and the conservation of their casts for 

 public study, shall be provided for by the Academy. 



