22 
PROCEEDINGS OF SOCIETIES. 
archaeologists are disposed to place them. Their clothing, of course, included the 
knitted woollen fabric of which the impression is sometimes found on the pottery; 
and also, doubtless, the skins of beasts. An account was given of the remains of 
a young man, so clothed, whose body was found in a hog at Mount Bellew, as 
described by Mr. Petrie. Mr. Porter stated that, in his opinion, the singular 
golden ornaments, resembling collars, and double cups connected by a curved bar ? 
belonged to this primeval period in the history of man. Gold, being found native, 
is often gathered and wrought by people who are quite unacquainted with any 
other metal. Perhaps the division of the world’s duration into the ages of gold, of 
silver, of brass and iron, might originally have had an historical reference to the 
successive inventions in the arts of life, as well as that moral application to which 
the poets have restricted it. In reference to the habitations of the people, an 
account was given of the wooden house found, under sixteen feet of bog, in the 
county of Donegal, and described by Captain Mudge, which, though skilfully 
framed, mortised, and grooved, was manifestly made by people who had no metal 
tools, and who subsisted largely on hazel nuts for food ; but it was stated that the 
more common dwelling-places were circular, generally depressed in the ground, 
surrounded with a low wall of uncemented stone, and probably thatched with 
heather, reeds, or bent. Mr. Porter did not conceive it to be proved, that the use 
of corn was then known, or agriculture practised. The low wall of their common 
habitations may have given rise to the circular stone forts, consisting of large stones, 
uncemented, but wedged tightly together, such as Staigue Fort, in Kerry; Greenan, 
in the neighbourhood of Londonderry; and Dun Aengus, in Arran Isle, off the 
coast of Galway. The different modes of burying practised by this ancient people 
were enumerated:—simple interment in shallow graves; in kist-vaens or rude 
stone coffins; under cromlechs, cairns, and raths; of which several kinds were 
described, and illustrated by drawings; as also funereal urns found beside the 
unburnt bones under raths and cromlechs, showing that inhumation and concre- 
mation were both in use at the same time. Pillar-stones belonging to this period 
were described. No idols, nor any object apparently designed for idolatrous use, 
has yet been discovered in the remains of this primeval race; while the arrows, 
weapons, utensils, &c., found in the urns and sepulchres, manifestly show a rude 
anticipation of a future state. On the whole, it was concluded, that the state of 
society and manners among the people who, at an unknown era, first occupied the 
soil of Ireland, was much farther advanced than some recent inquirers seemed 
disposed to admit: although no historical reliance can be placed on the tales of 
bards and seannachies, or the chronicles complied by uncritical annalists, thousands 
of years after the date to which they profess to carry back their narratives. Mr. 
Porter concluded by expressing his belief, grounded on the evidence afforded by 
the primitive burying-places, that the people who first inhabited Ireland, whoever 
they may have been, were not swept away or extirpated by a succeeding body of 
invaders, as has been contended by some archaeologists. Skulls, which these 
inquirers look upon as characteristic of the two races, are often found in the same 
sepulchre, manifestly deposited there at, or very nearly at, the same time; showing 
that the two races, if they were really distinct, had dwelt amicably together, and 
were laid by survivors, side by side, to sleep peacefully in a common grave. 
DUBLIN NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY. 
DECEMBER 9th, 1853. 
The usual meeting of the members of the Society was held at their Rooms, 212, 
Great Brunswick-street, on Friday evening, the 9th instant, 
Charles Farran, Esq., M.D., in the chair. 
The minutes and introductory business being confirmed and disposed of, 
Mr. Kinahan begged to present to the Society, from Doctor Corrigan, a fine 
specimen of the spiny-cross fish (Uraster Glacialis), also Muller’s topknot (Rhombus 
