Page:Archaeological Journal, Volume 2.djvu/122

100 crosses, of which a single specimen is given, existing at Kells: a great number of these elaborately decorated works of sculpture are to be found in all parts of Ireland. They exhibit much variety of form and ornament, and are similar, in some respects, to the crosses which exist in Wales and other parts of our island. These monuments deserve to be carefully investigated and classified, not merely on account of the peculiarities of decoration at different periods, which they tend to illustrate, but as memorials of the progressive establishment of Christianity, and of events in ecclesiastical history, with which the erection of these monuments may, doubtless, in many instances, be connected.

Space will not permit us further to pursue a notice of this work; we confidently recommend it to the perusal of our readers, as conveying much valuable information, illustrated by a profusion of well-selected representations. The second portion of the work contains brief but valuable geological descriptions of the several counties, and the details of a most valuable and extensive series of experiments on the strength, weight, &c, of the various building materials which exist in Ireland.

It is, perhaps, unnecessary to remind our readers, that the means of obtaining the like information, in regard to the building materials which are to be found in England, is most fully afforded by the national collection, freely open to the public, at the Museum of Economic Geology in Craig's Court, Charing Cross. This collection comprises the series of specimens procured by the commissioners who were appointed in 1838 to visit the quarries throughout the country, for the purpose of selecting materials for the new houses of parliament, and with these have been united the collections formed by the persons employed upon the Ordnance Geological Survey, affording not less to the architect and the antiquary, than to the Geologist, sources of most important and detailed information.