70 Royal Irish Academy. 



land of a public character, embracing the Gross, Civil, and Down Surveys 

 from 1640 to 1688; a Paper containing observations on the earliest 

 known MS. census returns of the people of Ireland ; another, on an 

 Unpublished Essay on Ireland, by Sir W. Petty, 1687 ; and a detailed 

 Paper of considerable interest " On Circumstances attending the Out- 

 break of the Civil War in Ireland, 1641-1652." 



W. Grimshaw, F.R.C.S.I., communicated to the Academy a Paper 

 on the subject of an improved Air Thermometer, by means of which 

 he obviated the well-known objection to the ordinary form of that 

 instrument. 



Thomas Grubb, P.R. S., enriched our Proceedings with two im- 

 portant Papers on the Microscope and its improvement. Of his more 

 special scientific work it is unnecessary to enter into any detail, as 

 there is probably no Observatory in Europe in which the skill and 

 genius of our late respected member were not held in the highest 

 •esteem. 



The Rev. George Longfield, D.D., was for some time a member of our 

 Council. He was a Eellow of Trinity College and Regius Professor of 

 Hebrew in the University of Dublin. In the latter capacity he delivered 

 a series of systematic lectures on the Hebrew Language and Literature. 

 He published in 1859 an Introduction to the Study of the Chaldee lan- 

 guage. In addition to his distinguished attainments in Semitic Philo- 

 logy, he was an accomplished Greek and Latin scholar ; and he is known 

 to have been for some time engaged on an edition of the Cajativi of 

 Plautus. This is not the place to speak at length of his moral 

 and social qualities ; but the strong feeling which was awakened by 

 his premature death gave evidence of the high esteem which was 

 •entertained by all who knew him for his manly, conscientious, and 

 unpretending character. 



John Barker, M.D., E.R.C.S.I., took his B.A. degree in the 

 University of Dublin, 1841, as a Senior Moderator in Mathe- 

 matics and Physics. Ten years later he was admitted a Member of 

 the Academy. For many years he held the office of Curator of the 

 Anatomical Museum of the Royal College of Surgeons in Ire- 

 land. Ardently attached to the Biological Sciences, he from time to 

 time published several interesting facts bearing on zoology and 

 botany. To our Proceedings he contributed several memoirs, of 

 which one, " On the Illumination of Microscopical Objects," may be 



