Page:Notes and Queries - Series 12 - Volume 1.djvu/24

18

NOTES AND QUERIES.

[12 S. I. JAN. 1, 1916. s.p., and that Abel's second wife Mary was mother of Abel No. 2. Then, again, informs us that Robert Gower of ButtonbridgeHall married in 1671 Katherine, daughter of Sir William Lacon Childe of Kinlet, whereas in the parish register it is recorded that Robert Gower married, Aug. 8, 1670, Katherine, daughter of Sir William Childe of Kinlet. As a matter of fact, there was no such person as Sir William Lacon Childe. Sir William Childe was succeeded in turn by his two sons, Sir Lacon William Childe and Thomas Childe, which latter had a son William Lacon Childe of Kinlet Hall.

In one important particular, however, is supported by indisputable extant documentary evidence, and that is that the Boughton estate and lordship were sold in 1729 by William Gower, then of Chiddingstone in Kent, grandson of Robert and Catherine; though Mr. Arthur W. Isaac, on p. 11 of his 'Bolton in St. John in Bedwardine,' after incorrectly stating that Robert Gower married Catherine, daughter of Thomas Childe, in 1682, tells us that their elder grandson Abel Eustace had a son Francis, born 1736, and a daughter, born 1744—the truth being that Francis and his sister were children of Abel and Elizabeth Gower, members of another branch of the family, and that Abel Eustace enjoyed his inheritance for a short time only after his father's death, and died s.p. 1711, aged 14 years, his younger brother William succeeding him, as is clearly shown by Mr. Crisp and the parish records.

THE WATER OF THE NILE (US. xii. 443, 510). The beans mentioned as used to clear Nile water in floodtimes acted in the same way as does the "clearing-nut" of India, the seed of Strychnos potatorum (noted in the 'N.E.D.' and in the 'Anglo-Indian Glossary'). Perhaps this nut, resembling a button-shaped bean, may have been used in Egypt. The sediment deposited from turbid water, when the vessel in which it is contained has been previously rubbed inside with a clearing-nut, is the fine clay which otherwise settles very slowly, sometimes imperfectly after many days' standing, from the water of rivers in flood or of ponds in which there is no vegetation to produce this effect naturally. This fine clay is very difficult to remove by filtration; indeed, it often chokes domestic filters. Precipitation by the clearing-nut is due to the coagulation of an albuminous constituent of the seed and this leaves a slight bitterness in the cleared water. Turbid water can be cleared much better by the addition of alum, seven grains to the gallon (or of aluminium sulphate five grains), previously dissolved. The small quantity of carbonates or of silicates usual in even the softest surface-water decomposes either of these alum-salts; the gelatinous alumina produced subsides in a few hours, carrying down with it all suspended clay, and the water can then be poured off perfectly clear. Only suspended impurities are removed; those in solution are not appreciably affected, otherwise than by the substitution of an equivalent quantity of sulphate of lime or of soda for the salts which decomposed the added sulphate of alumina. Neither is of any hygienic importance.

(11 S. xii. 422, 464).—Perhaps the phrase which most persistently adhered to Lord Westbury was one originating in the way in which he spoke of himself in addressing the local Y.M.C.A. at Wolverhampton on Oct. 4, 1859. This was summarized in Vanity Fair of May 15, 1869, as

The accompanying cartoon had the last four words printed above appended to it by way of motto.

(11 S. xii. 462).—I am glad to see 's letter at the above reference, in which he points out that there is nothing in Dr. Johnson's writings, or Boswell's records of his sayings, to show that he ever described angling as "a fool at one end of the line and a worm at the other." This saying has been attributed to Johnson times out of number. I told the late Dr. Birkbeck Hill (who knew all there is to know about Johnson) that Johnson was very civil to our sport, and had suggested to Moses Browne, the pastoral poet; that a new edition of the 'Angler' was wanted, and spoke of writing a Life of Walton. Would that he had done so! Dr. Hill told me that he could not find that the libel on angling could be brought home to Johnson; it seems that he, too, had taken it for granted.