afterwards an Alderman and Mayor of Kilkenny, when the Municipal Reform Act had passed-was commissioned to have a seal made in imitation of the old city seal; and he (Mr. Prim) was at the time informed by those who had seen it, that the seal had been procured. It was not, however, used for the intended purpose, whether from the danger of its being deemed an indictment might lie for forgery, or from the prospect of the Municipal Reform Act passing so soon as to obviate the necessity of continuing the struggle with the exclusive old Corporate body, he could not say; but it might fairly be conjectured that the electrotype before the meeting was taken from a leaden proof of this seal, which had by some strange chance been carried to America.

A stone with Ogham inscription, found in a cranoge in Ballydoolough, as described in a recent Paper on the ancient Lake-dwellings of the Co. Tyrone : presented by W. F. Wakeman, Esq.

A rubbing from an inscribed stone of an irregular form, about 14 inches by 15 inches, evidently a fragment of a larger mass, found in a field near Drumscara Castle, eight miles west of Macroom, Co. Cork, in April last. The inscribing presented Rune-like characters of some kind, but not likely to be decipherable: presented by R. Caulfield, LL.D., Cork.

The piece of embroidery representing the Arms of Queen Anne, exhibited by Dr. Long at the April Meeting: presented by Dr. Long, Arthurstown.

The Rev. Mr. Purcell, P. P., Ballycallan, through Mr. John Hogan, exhibited a very elegant silver Monstrance, used for many years in the Chapel at Ballycallan, Co. Kilkenny, and presumed to have been originally presented to that parish by Colonel Richard Butler, of Kilcash, brother to the first Duke of Ormonde, and the ancestor of the present Marquis of Ormonde. That Colonel Butler was the donor of the Monstrance there could be no doubt, from the ininscription, in cursive characters, which it bore :

God. be. merciful. to. the. Honnerable. Collonell. Richard. Butler. and. his. Right. Honnerable. Lady. Frances. Butler. alias. Touchet.

The Rev. Mr. Graves said that, in its general design, this Monstrance bore a great resemblance to one known.

to have been made for Bishop Roth (engraved in "The History, Architecture, and Antiquities of the Cathedral Church of St. Canice," p. 40), and which had long been preserved in the Bryan family, until presented by the late Mrs. Bryan, of Jenkinstown, to the Roman Catholic Cathedral, Kilkenny. The Monstrance now exhibited was somewhat older, and much more highly decorated than that of Bishop Roth. It measured 19 inches in height, and weighed 21 oz. 17 dwts. There was no plate mark visible.

Mr. Watson, Hon. Local Secretary, Londonderry, reported the purchase of a penannular gold antique, with inscribed chevron ornamentation and trumpet ends, by a jeweller in that city. It was found on Pollen Strand, in Innishowen, and weighed 3 oz. 9 dwts.

Mr. Prim said he was informed by Mr. R. Day, of Cork, that he had purchased at Londonderry, for his collection, a similar antique which he had showed lately to him at Kilkenny; it was most probably that reported by Mr. Watson.

The following communication was received from Mr. R. Day, M. R. I. A., F. S. A., accompanied by the woodcut, which he has presented free of cost to the Association :

"In the Journal for April 1869 (Vol. I., Third Series, p. 353), an inscribed Shrine arch, from my collection, is figured and described by the Rev. William Reeves, D. D. With it, was found the bulla here engraved, both of which I purchased from a dealer in Ballymena, who informed me, that they were found on the shore of the lower Bann. This bulla differs from those described by Sir William Wilde, in his Catalogue of the Gold Antiquities in the Royal Irish Academy; for while those there figured and described are composed of lead, and covered with laminæ of gold, this is a gold envelope encasing a relic, which Professor Harkness, F. R. S., of the Queen's College, Cork, has kindly analyzed for me. He states, that the 'substance is combustible, and burns with a flame; that the ash affords phosphoric acid. When examined with the microscope by transmitted light, the substance, besides

the lower Bann.

a large amount of earthy matter (clay), exhibits Gold Reliquary, found in small irregular-shaped particles, having a brownish red colour, which are probably altered blood globules.' This leaves no doubt concerning the use of this reliquary; the contents may be the blood of a martyred saint, mixed with the earth on which it was spilled. The top of this relic-case is hollowed to admit a string for suspension, and while the body is plain and undecorated, the upper

portion is ornamented with the well-known pattern so frequently found on gold ornaments of the same period, and on Cinerary Urns of an earlier time. Doctor Reeves has assigned the Shrine arch to the twelfth century, and we may reasonably give this the same, or perhaps a higher antiquity, as both were together, when found. It is unfortunate that the finder should have broken a portion of the gold covering off, and doubly so, that other objects found with it should have been mislaid and lost by him, as he was ignorant of their value, and supposed that the reliquary was brass, and valueless. The dealer, strange to say, was equally ignorant of its worth; and here it may be remarked, that as a rule, the peasantry mistake gold for brass, and bronze for gold. A gold hoopshaped fibula with wine-glass shaped ends, in my collection, weighing two ounces, when discovered, was broken in halves by the finder, who purposed using the pieces as hat pegs in his cabin, and who parted with both to a passing dealer for a small quantity of tobacco. Other instances have been met, and they are not a few, where finders of copper axes, and bronze palstaves, would not be persuaded but that they had secured wedges of gold; and in one case a man who had found a number of these at Renny, near Mallow, was so disappointed on learning their true character from a silversmith in Cork, that he flung all into the river there. Objects covered with thin plates of gold are often found in Ireland, and although the bullæ are scarce, the small penannular rings so well known as ring money, which have a groundwork of copper, and a covering of gold, are more frequently met with. If these circulated as a medium of exchange, they must have been forgeries of the period, and were both an admirably made counterfeit of the sterling gold ring money, and had probably an equally large circulation, for I have met with, during the past four years, in various parts of Ireland, no less than six of these spurious rings, and only four of those in solid gold.

A notice of a monumental slab found at Ballysaggart, parish of Killaghtee, Barony of Banagh, county of Donegal, was communicated by Mr. William H. Patterson, as follows:

"The very fine monumental slab of which an engraving faces this page, is now at the Roman Catholic Church at Killybegs, county of Donegal, where it is fixed securely, against the wall of the interior of the building. The slab was brought from an exposed position, near the ruins of a small ecclesiastical building at Ballysaggart,' on St. John's Point in the adjoining parish of Killaghtee; according to local tradition, it had been always there, and was known and admired by the peasantry, but it was trodden over by children, and the young men used to try their strength at lifting it; to protect it, therefore, from any further injury, the Rev. James Stephens had it removed to his church at Killybegs, in 1868, where it now remains, secure from further effects of weather or from chance mutilation.

1

The church and graveyard of Ballysaggart, "town of the priest," are shown on the eastern shore of St. John's Point,

4TH SER., VOL. II.

about half-way along the peninsula, in sheet 31 of the one-inch Ordnance Maps of the County.

R