Minutes of Proceedings. 173 



Monday, rEBEUAHT 25, 1895. 



De. J. K. Ingkam, S.P.T.C.D., President, in the Chair. 



Charles E. Browne, ar.n., read a " Eeport on the Ethnography of 

 the Mullet and of Iniskeen, Co. Mayo : being a Third Eeport from 

 the Anthropometrical Laboratory of Trinity College." 



His Excellency the Lord Lieutenant (Lord Houghton), Visitor of 

 the Academy, said : — 



" Me. Peesldent and Gentlemen, . 



" I have been asked to say a few words, and I am glad to take 

 this opportunity of expressing my thanks, and, I am sure, the thanks 

 of all present, to Dr. Browne for his interesting and instructive 

 Paper. In doing so, I ought to mention that never having had an 

 opportunity — or, as perhaps I should have said, not having taken 

 advantage of the opportunities which I might have had — of mastering 

 even the elements of the science of anthropology, I am but poorly 

 qualified to judge of its application to any particular instance. 

 Speaking, however, from a diiferent standpoint, I can say that the 

 subject of the Paper appeals particularly to my sympathies ; because 

 the economical condition of that poor district of Erris, so remote 

 and so poverty-stricken, is one which always engages the sympathy, 

 and sometimes, I am sorry to think, the anxious concern, of those 

 responsible for the administration of the country. So far as I can 

 judge from a very limited experience — an experience of a single 

 visit — backed as it is by the information which I have had at my 

 command, I can bear out everything Dr. Browne said of the good 

 humour which characterizes these people, and, I may add, of the 

 patience with which they endure the hardships of their lives. Upon 

 the general question of these reports and inquiries, and of their merits 

 as a contribution towards the formation of a social science in the direc- 

 tion indicated principally, I think, by Mr. Herbert Spencer, I feel it is 

 presumptuous for a layman to speak. It suffices that those men of 

 science, who are best qualified to judge, have recognized, although 

 somewhat tardily, the importance of these close local inquiries. It is 

 evident that if such inquiries are to be of real value there is no time 

 to be lost. Every day, before our eyes, as it were, old local traditions, 



