Minutes of Proceedings. 45 



sideration, to award on this occasion four Gold Medals, viz., one to 

 Dr. Aquilla Smith, for his inquiries into Irish Numismatics ; one to 

 Dr. Casey, for his important mathematical discoveries ; one to Pro- 

 fessor Dowden, for his literary writings, especially in the field of 

 Shaksperian criticism ; and one to Dr. Gr. J. Allman, for his researches 

 into the natural history of Hydrozoa. It will be observed that the 

 Academy has now waived the somewhat narrow condition which had 

 limited the works for which this honour could be awarded to those 

 published in its Transactioiis, or on subjects immediately connected 

 with this country. In selecting for this mark of their approval the 

 works of Professor Dowden, which have for their subject him who 

 was the poet not of one country but of humanity — not of one period 

 but of all time — the Council has worthily expanded the range of 

 influence of the Academy, and has brought our intellectual life into 

 kindred and fellowship with the intellects of other lands, so that the 

 distance and separation from other centres of intellectual activity, 

 which had been on so many occasions objected to our country, can no 

 longer be considered to apply. 



I should be thought unpardonably presumptuous, did I attempt to 

 describe with any detail the grounds upon which the Council founded 

 their decision as to these Medals, or were I to comment with any 

 affectation of authority on the works of the distinguished persons who 

 are to receive them. I shall venture, only in a general way, and very 

 briefly, to indicate the nature of the researches which in each case 

 have been specially designated by the Council as deserving to be 

 crowned with the approval of the Academy. 



The study of ITumismatics has been paralleled by an eminent 

 Geologist with that of Palaeontology, as representing, in regard to 

 history, a series of facts recorded in the concrete material of coins 

 and medals, fixing the order of succession of dates and events, as fossil 

 remains characterise the succession and relative dates of geological 

 formations, but leaving the philosophical interpretation of the cosmi- 

 cal or political changes by which those facts were caused to be 

 discussed on other grounds and with further sources of information. 

 The study of coins has thus afforded to history and to political 

 science, as the study of fossils has afforded to geological science, 

 important means of definition and control ; and Dr. Smith, by the 

 valuable series of Papers which he contributed to our Proceedings and 



