44 Old Belfast : Its Origin and Progress. 



up to business in Belfast. He early developed a taste for the 

 study of Irish antiquities and archaeology, and was one of the 

 founders of the *' Ulster Journal of Archaeology," a valuable and 

 useful publication, of which he believed he was editor, and to 

 which he was a frequent contributor. Mr. MacAdam was an 

 accomplished linguist, familiar with the classics, and with 

 several modern languages. He was quite an enthusiastic Celtic 

 scholar, and was particularly fond of the Irish language, litera- 

 ture, and music. As a near neighbour and intimate friend of 

 his (the president's) father, he knew him all his life and ap- 

 preciated his friendship very highly. Of late years he was but 

 little seen in public. He had outlived all his old intimate 

 friends and most of his contemporaries, so that there were now 

 but few remaining who could recall the variety and charm of 

 his conversation and his apparently inexhaustible stores of 

 information. Mr. MacAdam died unmarried. He begged to 

 move that, in recording their own regret at Mr. MacAdam's 

 removal, the society should at the same time wish to convey to 

 his relatives and friends their sympathy with them in their 

 loss ; and that the honorary secretary be requested to forward 

 a copy of that resolution to Miss MacAdam. 



Mr. Wm. Boyd seconded the motion, which was passed 

 unanimously. 



Mr. Robert M. Young, B.A., M.R.I.A. (honorary secretary), 

 gave a brief description of three sepulchral urns presented to 

 the society by Miss Watson, Killinchy, and Mr. Robert Corry, 

 Sandown, the Knock. He said that although their Museum 

 contained a number of fine specimens of Irish cinerary urns, it 

 had usually happened that they were found by labourers whose 

 first instinct was to break them in order to secure the treasure 

 popularly supposed to be hidden in those " crocks of gold." 

 Consequently little attention was paid to the manner of their 

 occurrence in the soil, or even to their exact locality. The im- 

 portance ot a careful inspection when such excavations were either 

 undertaken or occurred accidentally,waspointed out by SirWilliam 

 Wilde in his admirable catalogue of the Royal Irish Academy. 



