182 



Mr. George C. Garnett read a paper " On Deep-sea Soundings." 

 The Secretary read a paper by Mr. George J. Knox " On the Compo- 

 sition of Cadmium, Arsenic, and Nitrogen." 



MONDAY, DECEMBER 12, 1864. 

 John F. Waller, LL. D., Vice-President, in the Chair. 

 P. Joseph Keenan, Esq., was elected a Member of the Academy. 

 Denis H. Kelly read the following paper : — 

 Description or two Irish MS. Tracts by the Celebrated Dtjald 



McElRBIS, TRANSCRIBED BY W. HENNESSY, Esq. ; AND PRESENTED 

 BY HIM TO THE EoYAL IRISH ACADEMY, THROUGH D. H. KELLY, 



M. E. I. A. 



Mr. President and Gentlemen, — Mr. "William Hennessy has intrusted 

 to me, for presentation to the Academy, this small Book, containing 

 faithful transcripts, with the contractions resolved, of two Tracts com- 

 piled by the celebrated Duald Mc Eirbis, the Amanuensis of Sir James 

 Ware, the originals of which are preseryed in the Bodleian Library, 

 at Oxford, where Mr. Hennessy discovered them in the month of 

 August last. 



The MSS. from which these copies have been transcribed are in 

 the beautifully minute and well-known handwriting of the learned and 

 industrious D. Mc Eirbis; and, although their cod tents are comprised 

 in the small volume which I now submit to the Academy, the labourers 

 in our wide field of Irish Archaeology will, I believe, find in them much 

 that is well worthy of careful examination. 



I feel some gratification myself in having suggested to Mr. Hennessy 

 the importance of a careful examination of the Irish MS. collections in 

 both the British Museum and the Bodleian at Oxford, on the occasion of 

 his kindly undertaking for me to collate my transcript of an Irish MS, 

 in which I am interested with its original in the British Museum ; 

 and I believe that the volume which forms the subject of my obser- 

 vations this evening is only an instalment of the fruits we may look for 

 from Mr. Hennessy' s visit. 



It will be unnecessary for me to trouble the Academy with any ob- 

 servations on the character of Duald Mc Eirbis, and the nature of his 

 contributions to Irish history, topography, and genealogy. It is well 

 known that he was the lineal descendant of the learned compilers of 

 the Book of Leacan, the hereditary ollamhs in history and genealogy of 

 the Hy Erachrach of the Moy ; and those who wish for further infor- 

 mation on the subject will find it on referring to our friend Dr. 

 Petrie's Notice in vol. xviii. of the Academy's " Transactions," of our 

 lamented friend O'Donovan's archaeological volume on the Tribes, &c, 

 of the Hy Eiachrach ; and to our equally lamented friend Eugene 



