52 Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy. 
Having premised so miicli for tlie purpose of showing that, if we 
would estimate rightly onr progress in any branch of our study, we 
must not only look back over a considerable period of our history, but 
also beyond our own institution to the general history of scientific 
progress, I would now proceed to examine more particularly the 
several departments into which the Academy may be divided. Let me 
commence by saying a few words of two departments of the Academy 
which are necessarily progressive, at least in a certain sense of that 
word. We are constantly adding archaeological curiosities to our 
Museum — books and manuscripts to our Library. Are we adding as 
much as we might ? Are we using them as we ought ? And first, 
as to our Museum. 
It is, I fear, but too certain that every year witnesses, in Ireland, 
the destruction of objects of great archaeological interest. More espe- 
cially, objects in metal, gold and silver ornaments, are bought up from 
the finder by travelling hawkers, are sold by them to the silversmith, 
and so find their way to the melting pot. And thus many most inte- 
resting relics of the olden time of Ireland have perished. The most 
strenuous efforts have been made, more especially by our late President, 
to arrest this evil. The Crown was induced to waive its rights of 
property in our favour. Parliament gives us an annual grant for the 
purchase of these articles, and we are always ready to buy them at 
their full intrinsic value. Yet from some unaccountable fatuity, the 
finder, instead of sending them here, will often rather dispose of them 
to a hawker, at a price, it is believed, very far below that which he 
might have obtained from us. In this state of things, only one remedy 
seems to be within our power, namely, the widest possible publication 
of the fact, that the Eoyal Irish Academy is ready to purchase at their 
full value objects of antiquarian interest. This publication we have 
endeavoured to efi'ect by dispersing through the country notices, illus- 
trated by woodcuts of the principal types of such objects, and giving 
full information to the finder as to the highest, and safest, market for 
them. These descriptive notices have been, and are being, hung up in 
all the ^National schools, and it is hoped that the efi'ect may be found 
beneficial. 
But we have another class of rivals for the possession of such ob- 
jects. I mean, the private collectors. These are not, indeed, so in- 
jurious to the cause of Archaeology as the silversmiths. They do not 
destroy the objects — nay, they often do good service by preserving 
them. But I must add, they often render them useless — in fact, as 
far as the general student is concerned, they must be useless. JSTo man 
will, or indeed can, make his house generally accessible for purposes of 
study. And so, in truth, the difi'erence between the fate of the antiqua- 
rian relic which finds its way to the melting pot, and the fate of that 
which is entombed in the cabinet of a private collector, is often only 
the difference between the fates of money thrown into the sea, and 
money buried in the garden. The first is lost for ever. We may hope 
that, at some future time, the second will turn up ; but for the present 
