74 



The Council are gratified to observe the increasing interest 

 which is every day felt in the publication of the Proceedings. Not 

 being confined to the mere analysis of elaborate memoirs intended 

 for the Transactions, but giving free admission, and occasionally 

 complete insertion, to smaller papers of various kinds, the Pro- 

 ceedings serve as a repository for scattered facts, and important no- 

 tices, which would otherwise be lost. Speedy publication is an ad- 

 ditional inducement to authors to communicate such notices ; and 

 by the adoption of woodcuts for antiquarian and scientific objects, 

 of which the mere verbal description would be vague and unsatis- 

 factory, the value of the communications is very much enhanced. 



The expenses of printing and engraving continue, as might be 

 expected, to press very heavily on the funds of the Academy. 

 With the view, therefore, of practising every possible economy, 

 the Council have entered into an arrangement with Mr. Petrie, by 

 which that gentleman has bound himself to print, at his own risk, 

 his Essay on the Round Towers of Ireland, as the twentieth Volume 

 of the Transactions, engaging to supply the Academy with 450 

 copies of the work at a settled price, the sum which they have al- 

 ready expended for engraving to be deducted therefrom. The 

 Academy will thus be furnished with as many copies as they want, 

 and will be saved the additional outlay which would be requisite if 

 they were themselves to defray the charge of the whole edition. 

 After the great and unusual delays which have attended the publi- 

 cation of this Essay, the Council are gratified in being able to 

 state that it has been actually put to press, and that the author 

 confidently expects it will make its appearance soon after the second 

 part of the nineteenth Volume of the Transactions. 



Notwithstanding the limited extent of the resources of the 

 A cademy, the Council are of opinion that the formation of a Na- 

 tional Museum of Antiquities is an object which the Academy 

 should continue steadily to pursue, as far as these resources will 

 reasonably permit ; and since many articles of great value to the 

 antiquarian are disposed of from time to time by public and by 

 private sale, and may never again be met with, if such opportunities 

 of procuring them are lost, they have thought it advisable to 

 recommend to the Academy that a sum of money should be en- 



