398 



" Treasury Chambers, ^th of July, 1863. 



Sir, — With reference to your letters of 29th and 30th nit., on 

 the subject of the future position of the Irish Industrial Museum and 

 the Eoyal Irish Academy in regard to the Eoyal Dublin Society, I am 

 commanded by the Lords Commissioners of Her Majesty's Treasury to 

 request that you will state to His Excellency the Lord Lieutenant, that 

 they confined themselves in their communications to His Excellency, 

 and to the Lords of the Committee on Education, to that part of the 

 Eeport of the Commissioners of Inquiry into the Scientific Institutions 

 in Dublin which has reference to the Royal Dublin Society and the Mu- 

 seum of Irish Industry. 



^' My Lords took the same view of the last clause in the Report un- 

 der the head of ' other grants, &c.' (page 33), which His Excellency 

 expresses, namely, that it contains matter rather adverted to than de- 

 liberately advised, and accordingly my Lords did not deal with that 

 clause as containing the recommendations of the Commission. 



" Their Lordships desire me to add that they fully concur with His 

 Excellency in the expediency of continuing to the Royal Irish Academy 

 that independent position and action as a scientific Society, which it has 

 enjoyed for eighty years under Royal Charter, with advantage to the 

 public, and credit to itself; and my Lords have no intention of taking 

 any measures which would interfere with that position. 



Their Lordships request that His Excellency will cause a commu- 

 nication to this effect to be made to the President of the Academy. 



" I am, &c., &c. &c., 

 (Signed) Geo. A. Hamilton". 



" To Sir Thomas Larcom, K. C. 5." 



Mr. Samuel Ferguson, Q. C, communicated the following — 



Account or Inscribed Stones m the Sepulchral Monument, called 

 Mane N^elud, at Locmariaker, in" the Department of Morbihan", 

 Brittany. 



On the peninsula of Locmariaker are several sepulchral tumuli contain- 

 ing stone chambers, and a large number of stone chambers from which 

 the tumuli have been removed, all of great dimensions, and, with their 

 associated pillar stones, well known as ranking among the most remark- 

 able megalithic monuments in existence. The most northern of these 

 is the tumulus called, in Breton, Mane JVelud, or, as usually (though 

 it would appear erroneously) rendered in Erench, montagne-cendre. 

 Ludu, in Breton, signifies cinder ; but nelud is not the form which ludu 

 would assume in composition. The mound is composed of earth and 

 field stones, and is in form a long oval, whose major axis lies nearly 

 east and west. It has been stripped, at its western end, down to the 

 covering stones of a chamber approached by a passage opening towards 

 the south. This chamber has lain open for a long period of time. A flight 

 of steps has been formed to facilitate the descent into the interior, 



