Page:Notes and Queries - Series 11 - Volume 2.djvu/459

 H s. vm. DKC. e, 1913.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

453

without issue, devised it by his last will and testa- ment to his kinsman Sir George Wright, Knt., and his son in King Charles's reign conveyed it by sale to Dr. Obert/'

In a foot-note the arms of this family are given as Per pale or and sable, a bend counter- changed, which arms, according to Burke, were granted by Segar. I imagine this has reference to Sir George of Richmond.

Since writing the above I have seen MR. FLETCHER'S notes, for which I sincerely thank him. I had seen Sir George Wright's will and that of his wife, but there is nothing in them to show what relationship existed between Sir George and Sir Robert Wright. Sir George was born about the year 1573, but, as I have not Foster's ' Alumni Oxoni- enses ' by me, I cannot tell if this agrees with the age, which I presume is given there. I have not yet looked for the will of the Oeorge Wright whom Hasted speaks of. The arms given in the ' Visitation of Surrey ' Gu., a fesse vaire erm. and az. were con- firmed to Richard Wright, the brother of Sir Robert, by Robert Cooke, 25 Oct., 1587, so that there does not appear to be any very close relationship to the Kentish family whose arms Hasted gives. Whatever arms existed on the monument in Richmond Church appear to have perished. Sir George Wright was knighted at Chatham, 4 July, 1604. A. STEPHENS DYER.

207, Kingston Road, Teddington.

IRISH GHOST STORIES (11 S. vm. 389). ' Killarney Legends,' edited by T. Crofton Croker, will be found fruitful.

R. LAWSON..

Urmston.

MICA (11 S. viii. 232). Mica was held by the ancient Chinese to furnish a priceless catholicon and elixir vitce when prepared with various other ingredients cinnamon, onions, salt, nitre, alum, honey, the autumnal dews, &c.by soaking, boiling, steaming, c. Its raison d'etre is given by the cele- brated Tauist writer Koh Hung (c. A.D. 254- 334) as follows :

" Mica differs from all other substances in never decaying after bein? buried for a very long time and never being consumed by blazing "fire. Hence one who uses to take it internally is sure to pro- Ion? his lite indefinitely, and to be neither wet with water, nor burnt with fire, nor hurt with pricks on which he may perchance tread."

According to Kau Tsung-Shih's ' Pan-tsau- yen-i,' finished about A.D. 1115, his contem- poraries took mica internally very seldom, restricting its medicinal use to cutaneous applications. Seven years before this Tang

Shin-Wei completed his ' Ching-lui-pan- tsau,' wherein he quotes an older work for the preparation of a remarkable panacean pill from mica, using as other ingredients quicksilver and two particular herbs now difficult to identify. For its details see Li Shi-Chin's ' Pan-tsau-kang-muh,' 1578, torn, viii., art. ' Yun-mu.'

KTJMAGUSU MINAKATA. Tanabe, Kii, Japan.

BIRD ISLAND : BRAMBLE CAY (11 S. viii. 388). Bird Island is a remarkable island in the North Pacific Ocean, discovered in 1788 by the captain of the Prince of Wales, and visited by Meares in 1789, and by Van- couver in 1794. It is a solitary rock rising abruptly out of the immense ocean in N. lat. 23 6', and derives its name from the vast multitude of birds to which it affords asylum. It has the form of a saddle, high at each end and low at the middle. Its greatest extent, which is in a direction S. 74 W. and N. 74 E., does not exceed 1 mile. Its northern, eastern, and western extremities, against which the sea breaks with great violence, rise perpendicularly from the ocean in lofty, rugged cliffs, inaccessible but to its winged inhabitants. On its southern side the ascent is not so steep and abrupt, and near its western extremity is a small sandy beach, where in fine weather and a smooth sea a landing might probably be effected. At this place Vancouver saw some appearance of verdure, though it was destitute of tree or shrub ; every other part was apparently without soil, and consisted only of naked rock.

The Sandwich Islanders recognize it under the appellation of " Modoo Manoo " (that is, " Bird Island "), and from its great distance from all other land and its proxi- mity to their islands it seems to claim to be ranked in the group of the Sandwich Islands, being 39 leagues N. and 51 W. of Onehow.

Bramble Cay is a small rocky island with a beacon, in the Gulf of Papua, in 9 7' S., 143 52' E. TOM JONES.

[L. L. K. also thanked for reply. ]

"PRO PELLE CUTEM" (11 S. viii. 387). [ venture to suggest, not too confidently, that these words, the motto of the Hudson's Bay Compa-ny, will bear a simpler explana- tion than that proposed by MR. FOSTER PALMER. Cutem curare means to take care of oneself, to look after one's comfort ; and we have the English phrase, at least 200 years old, " to save one's skin," cutis and skin being used in these expressions in the same secondary sense. The motto, then,