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mains, and had them placed for security in an unoccupied glasscase in 

 the board room. These antiquities, as I have heard from his own lips, 

 had previously been left exposed for years on the floor of a small apart- 

 ment, called a Library, in the upper storey of the Academy House ; and 

 between the period when Peteie had first seen them in this situation, 

 previously to his election as member of the Academy, and that at which 

 he rescued them from future danger, nearly one half of the articles, and 

 those the most precious, had disappeared. From this epoch dates a pe- 

 riod of fruitful activity in our Committee of Antiquities, happily con- 

 trasting with the inertness of the previous seventeen years, during 

 which its meetings had been absolutely suspended. I should occupy 

 too much of your time, if I attempted fully to record the services which 

 Petkie rendered to the Academy, by helping towards the acquisition of 

 the various collections, the assemblage of which in our Museum has 

 given it a national character. It must suffice for me to name the Un- 

 derwood Collection, and those of Dean Dawson, and Major Sirr. It is 

 right to notice that in these various movements Peteie received the most 

 cordial and efficient support from the late Professor Mac Cullagh, whose 

 sympathies were, no doubt, drawn forth by the manifestation on Peteie' s 

 part of a truly scientific spirit in his method of dealing with antiquities. 

 Many of you are aware that it was at Peteie' s instance that Mac Cullagh 

 purchased the Cross of Cong, and made that splendid donation to our 

 Museum ; and I may add his generous contribution towards the pur- 

 chase of the Tara Torques as another proof of the same sympathy. In- 

 deed, it may be recorded as one of Peteie' s academical distinctions, that 

 to his personal influence was mainly owing that happy union between 

 the scientific and archseological elements within our body, upon which 

 we may now congratulate ourselves, but to which, before his time, cor- 

 responded a relation of passive, if not active, opposition. 



Peteie contributed no less important services towards the formation 

 of our Library. Whenever opportunities offered of acquiring Irish MSS., 

 he exerted his influence to induce the Academy to supply funds for their 

 purchase. The grant placed at his disposal for this purpose being fre- 

 quently inadequate, he ventured more than once, at his own risk, to 

 secure MSS. the value of which he understood better than any one, and 

 which he knew ought to be added to the Academy's collection. Thus, 

 at the sale of Edward O'Reilly's MSS., after the Academy's grant of £50 

 had been exhausted, he purchased for himself some of The O'Cleary's 

 MSS., and afterwards gave them up to the Academy at the cost price. 

 Having become under precisely similar circumstances the possessor of 

 the autograph copy of the second part of the "Annals of the Pour 

 Masters," he generously surrendered it to the Academy for the sum he 

 had given for it, although immediately on its becoming known in the 

 saleroom what the MS. was, he was offered, in the first instance, £100 

 over and above the purchase money, and was subsequently pressed to 

 name any sum that would induce him to resign it. In acknowledgment 

 of the generosity and zeal evinced on this occasion by Peteie, the Aca- 

 demy passed a resolution declaring him a Member for Life. 



