Page:Notes and Queries - Series 11 - Volume 3.djvu/83

 a s. m. JAN. 28, mi.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

77

of the custom. At all events, the gift of a riddle of claret was of long standing, and dates from days when people attached more importance to lucky and unlucky numbers than they do now. SCOTTJS.

WATER-SHOES FOE, WALKING ON THE WATER : GEORGE PARRATT (11 S. ii. 485). In * The Wonders of the Universe ; or, Curiosities of Nature and Art,' 1824, culled on the false title and at the head of the letterpress * The New Wonderful and Enter- taining Magazine,' p. 47, is an article headed ' A Curious Invention for Walking upon the Water.' The first paragraph is :

" Mr. Kent's [of Glasgow] recent invention of a machine by which he walks or moves along upon the water at the rate of three miles per hour, has produced the announcement of another novelty of the same description, but which seems more extensively useful. The inventor terms it an Aquatic Sledge ; it is thus described : "

Then follows an account of this sledge, invented " some years ago " by Mr. Bader, " councellor of mines at Munich, in Bavaria."

" The first public experiment was made with this machine on the 29th of August, 1810, before the royal family at Nymphenburg, with complete success. It is described as consisting of two hollow canoes or pontoons, eight feet long, made of sheet copper, closed on all sides, joined to each other in parallel direction, at a distance of six feet, by a light wooden frame. Thus joined, they support a seat resembling an arm-chair, in which the rider is seated, and impels and steers the sledge by treading two large pedals before him Each of these pedals is connected with a paddle, fixed perpendicularly in the intervals between the two pontoons. In front of the seat stands a small table, on which he may read, write, draw, or eat and drink .... This vehicle is far safer than a common boat, the centre of gravity being con- stantly in the middle of a very broad base, a circumstance which renders upsetting, even in the heaviest gale, absolutely impossible. It is moreover so contrived, that it may be taken to pieces in a few minutes, packed in a box, and put together in very short time."

The box containing two metal pontoons, each eight feet long, and the other things must have been rather large.

Some 20 or 25 years ago there was an exhibition of " life-saving " inventions in the Channel. The chief organizer, or perhaps only one of the organizers, was a friend ot mine, dead long ago, Mr. George Parratt. He was a fairly prolific inventor of in- genious but useless things. His pet in- vention was a lifeboat consisting mainly of collapsible pontoons, which in case of need were to be inflated by bellows. This was, I think, the principal machine in the exhibition, which took place on and about the^catamaran steamship Castalia, which is

now, or was not very long ago, a smallpox hospital, somewhere in the lower reaches of the Thames.

Among the strange inventions was one for as it were walking in the sea. It was an indiarubber boat about four feet long by about two feet in the middle, with two india- rubber stockings attached to the bottom. The inventor's assistant got into this boat with his legs in the stockings, closed the top covering round his waist, and then went down the perpendicular ladder lashed to the ship's side. Either before going down or directly he got into the water, he proceeded to inflate the apparatus through a tube. He had with him a little double paddle, with which he was intended to propel himself. The tube, however, got loose or otherwise out of order, and the boat began to fill and sink. Fortunately, there was a very handy man on board, with little more than a pair of old trousers on ; he hurried down the ladder, and caught the hand of the sinking assistant of the inventor.

There were other inventions which were so dangerous that it was a wonder that no one was drowned, although the sea was perfectly calm.

At one time Parratt 's raft lay in the Serpentine at another in the water at (?) the Earl's Court Exhibition. What be- came of it eventually I do not know.

ROBERT PIERPOINT.

COUNTY COATS OF ARMS : Co. SOMERSET (11 S. iii. 30). According to 'The Book of Public Arms,' Somerset has no armorial bearings :

" The seal of the County Council simply ex- hibits the inscription, ' The Seal of the County Council of Somerset, 1889.' The arms of Bath have sometimes done duty for the county; but the ' Justices ' Seal, which is most beautifully executed, represents King Ina in his Palace of Justice, and at his feet is a portcullis, the old Plantagenet badge, evidently allusive to the old Beauforts, Dukes of Somerset. On the dexter side are the arms of the Somersets, Dukes of Beaufort, balanced on the sinister by the arms of the Seymours, Dukes of Somerset. At the base are the arms of the See of Bath and Wells, and at the top are the arms .... a cross patonce between four martlets."

ROLAND AUSTIN.

Public Library, Gloucester.

PlTT AND WlLKES ON ENFRANCHISEMENT

(11 S. iii. 8). Inquiry is made at the above reference for the names of the 36 boroughs which Mr. Pitt in 1785 proposed to dis- franchise, and the inquirer adds that he put this question many years ago.