Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 10.djvu/70

 NOTES AND QUERIES. [io s. x. JULY is,

The papaw being Carica papaya, while Ficus carica is the common fig, I had sup- posed that similarity of name had caused confusion ; but it now appears that Bouchut in 1880 found the milky juice of the fig tree to contain a digestive ferment similar to that of the papaw, and that Landerer (American Journal of Pharmacy, xxxiii. 215 found that the unripe fig contains an irritant juice which inflames the skin, and may even disorganize it. Examination of Poole's "* Index of Periodicals ' (especially under Papaw, Digests, and Ferments) will pro- bably give any further references required.

ROCKINGHAM.

Boston, U.S.

"ABRACADABRA" (10 S. ix. 467; x. 35). The first two syllables remind one of, and may be akin to, the somewhat obscure word abra, occurring six times in Wright-Wiilcker's the fifteenth century, as the Latin equivalent of " bower-maid." For the Greek see Liddell and Scott ; for the Latin, Du Cange. The word has been lately brought before students by the editress of * Emare ' {E.E.T.S., xcix.) in a learned note on the name, " Abro," of a handmaid in 1. 57, almost certainly identical with the word of the glossaries. The note mentions that Sophocles in his lexicon gives a Chaldean equivalent to "A/3pa, which is of interest as regards the notice at the first reference
 * Vocabularies,' from ^Elfric's glossary to

H. P. L.

"PROMETHEAN" (10 S. x. 10). In the course of nearly fifty years' experience in the drug and allied trades I have never heard ^of, much less seen, a fire-lighter answering to the description quoted by DR. MURRAY. Indeed, an apparatus of the kind would be extremely dangerous : sulphuric acid is hardly a thing to be played with or carried about familiarly. Perhaps the dictionary-maker had the German pipe- lighter in mind ; this, however, is known not as a " promethean," but simply as what I have called it. It may be bought at Gamage's for eightpence halfpenny, and though it is not apparently in very common use, it is exceedingly convenient for smokers. The fire is generated by means of platinum .and methylic alcohol.

A " promethean," however, is a very different thing. It consists of a stoppered bottle with a piece of asbestos attached to the stopper. The bottle contains spirit of wine, and the asbestos, when saturated with this, may be used for lighting a pipe or candle from another flame. It is in

fact a substitute for a spill, nothing more, with the advantage that the asbestos, being non-inflammable, will last for ever. Prometheus, it should be remembered, was not a fire-maker, but only a fire-bringer.

C. C. B.

The late Sir Frederick Pollock tells us in his ' Personal Remembrances ' (vol. i. p. Ill) that when he was a barrister on circuit in 1838 he carried about with him cigar-lighters, which he proceeds to describe a small globule of glass containing a strong acid was enclosed in a twisted paper match, charged with chlorate of potass, and they were ignited by crushing the end of the match. They served their purpose well enough, but were expensive, and were soon superseded by the friction matches now in universal use. T. W. B.

THE NOSE CELESTIAL (10 S. ix. 406). Some years ago I was told that it was well known that the Chinese find the smell of a white man as offensive as the white man finds that of the negro, or even worse.

What do the negro himself and the red man think of the pale-face in this respect ? As " the family Hominidae contains but one genus, Homo, and probably but one species, H. sapiens," it is curious that scents which are so distinctive and so repellent should exist.

It is said that any horse which is not accustomed to asses is disturbed when it first scents one of them ; but these animals do not readily mate together, as the different races of men are in the habit of doing. With them the objectionable odour may be a warning which teaches them that the creature producing it is of alien breed, a stranger who ought to remain a stranger.

S. R.

EDWARDS OF HALIFAX (10 S. ix. 510). A paragraph on James Edwards of Halifax and his bindings will be found in ' Biblio- graphica,' vol. ii. p. 405, published by Messrs. Kegan Paul & Co. in 1896.

H. J. B. CLEMENTS.

H. C. WISE (10 S. ix. 510). According to " Members of Parliament, Part II., ordered, by the House of Commons, to be printed 1 March, 1878" (Parliamentary Paper 69-i), Henry Christopher Wise, Esq., was on 24 July, 1865, elected for Warwick bounty (Southern Division), his colleague Deing Sir Charles Mordaunt, Bt. He was re-elected on 21 Nov., 1868, for the same onstituency, his colleague being John