43 2 [Proc B.N.F.C., 



Barrow -on -Soar, Cheltenham, and "Whitby ; Carboniferous fossils from Bristol 

 and the Peak of Derbyshire. 



"With hig friend, Captain Bennett, who frequently came down from Dublin to 

 pay him a visit, many shorter trips were made. Raids were made on the Car- 

 boniferous sandstone of Cookstown and Dungannon for corals ; to Pomeroy for 

 Silurian trilobites ; to the Causeway for zeolites and rock specimens ; to 

 Armagh for the celebrated teeth and spines of fish that the crystalline limestones 

 there yielded ; to Dungiven, Magilligan, Portrush, Glenarm, and other spots, 

 and the two friends never returned to Broughshane without some geological 

 souvenirs of the places visited. 



On other occasions archaeological explorations would occupy his time. The 

 raised beaches of Kilroot, Holy wood, Larne, &c, were carefully and repeatedly 

 inspected for the rude flint implements which they yield. The sand-dunes of 

 "White Park Bay, Portrush, Portstewart, Grangemore, yielded implements of 

 flint, pieces of pottery, glass beads, and other objects ; and no opportunity 

 was ever lost of securing objects from dealers or others which would enrich his 

 collections. Indeed, Canon Grainger more than once remarked to us that he 

 made a point of never making an excursion or paying a visit without bringing 

 something home with him. 



Thus, in constant collecting and exploring, which occupied all the time he 

 could spare from his parish work, the years passed away, until the handsome 

 house at Broughshane became a museum, filled from top to bottom with anti- 

 quities and natural history objects, and many other illustrations of the science 

 and art of past and present times. The savage dress and weapons of a South 

 Sea Islander were surveyed by the glassy stare of tropical birds. The variously 

 coloured corals stood side by side with polished jades and stone implements. 

 The rude altar-stone of Connor, inscribed with five crosses, representing the 

 five wounds of Christ, as was the custom in the Irish Church, and upon which 

 the Blessed Sacrament had been dispensed for centuries, was carefully 

 protected by glass, after having seen many vicissitudes, and having been 

 rescued from the menial office of holding a poor woman's water-bucket. It 

 is now rightly regarded as a great treasure, and only equalled in interest by an 

 inscribed stone once belonging to Petrie, and brought from one of the western 

 islands, the inscription on which no one has yet been able to decipher. A 

 curiously -shaped altar vessel of enamel work, accurately described in the Ulster 

 Journal of Arclueology, stood beside a quaint old hand-bell used in an ancient 

 Irish church, whilst many broken crosses and saintly representations were 

 ranged around. The Celtic bronze swords and spears made a formidable array, 

 the collecting of each specimen being an experience in itself. Many of them 

 have been accurately described in word and pencil by "W. F. "Wakeman in 

 the Proceedings of the Eoyal Irish Academy and the Royal Society of Anti- 

 quaries. The flint arrow heads number over a thousand, and the stone imple- 

 ments foi variety of formation are extremely interesting, whilst the use of many 



