437 



logued, including the important volumes, the Books of Lecan 

 and Ballymote, whose examination would take some months, 

 and that the Council have therefore been under the necessity 

 of applying to the Academy for a further grant of money to 

 enable Mr. Curry to complete the work. 



It was resolved by the Academy that the sum recom- 

 mended by the Council be granted for this purpose. 



December 11. 



SIR Wm. R. HAMILTON, LL.D., President, in the Chair. 



Matthew Dease, Esq., William M'Doughall, Esq., Sir 

 Montague Chapman, Bart., James H. Pickford, M. D., Ed- 

 ward Bewley, M.D., and James S. EifFe, Esqrs., were elected 

 Members of the Academy. 



Professor Kane read a paper on the Chemical Compo- 

 sition of the plants of Flax and Hemp. 



In those plants which are cultivated for the purpose of being 

 ultimately employed as food, it is found that certain consti- 

 tuents are withdrawn from the soil, partly of an organic and 

 partly of an inorganic character, which give to the plant, or 

 to certain portions of it, the constitution that adapts it for 

 sustaining the animal organism. Thus nitrogen, alkalies, 

 and lastly, phosphates, &c., are found as components of 

 plants, and the value of the ci'op yielded by a certain surface 

 of ground is proportional, generally speaking, to the materials 

 which the crop has taken up. If, therefore, wheat, or oats, 

 or potatoes exhaust a soil, the agriculturist does not suffer 

 thereby, for he is paid for the materials of which they have 

 exhausted it, and when he replaces that loss of material by 

 fresh manure he but invests a certain capital, to be delivered 

 at a profit in the next season. 



Many plants not employed as food, but ancillary to our 

 civilization as luxuries, or as utihzed in the arts, are similarly 



