Page:Notes and Queries - Series 12 - Volume 3.djvu/316

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NOTES AND QUERIES.

MAY, 1917.

A few years later a cheaper edition was issued. Both were from the firm of Sampson iow & Co. Probably a clean copy could IDO found by some good second-hand book- seller at a reasonable price the 1879 edition for preference, as there may have been more than one reprint.

S. L. PETTY. Ulverston.

ORPIMENT (12 S. iii. 249). Sir Edward Thorpe, in his ' Dictionary of Applied Chemistry,' describes orpiment as being

'' native arsenic trisulphide, crystallizing in the orthorhombic system and isomorphous with stibnite. Crystals are rare, the mineral usually occurring as laminated or scaly masses with a perfect cleavage parallel to the surface of the plates. The colour is lemon-yellow, and there is a pearly lustre on the cleavage surfaces. The mineral is very soft and sectile, and the flakes are readily bent. Orpiment occurs, usually in association with realgar, in mineral-veins together 'with ores of silver, lead, &c., and also as nodules in beds of sandy clay. It is found at several places in Hungary, at Mercur in Utah, and in some abundance at Julamerk in Asiatic Turkey. 'Some hundreds of tons are exported annually from Shihhaung-Ch'ang in prov. Yunnan, China. The mineral is used as a pigment (king's yellow), tout now mostly in the East ; it is the auripig- mentum (golden paint) of the ancients. Formerly iit was also used in dyeing and calico-printing, .and by tanners for removing hair from skins."

ARCHIBALD SPARKE.

Orpiment (auripigmentum) is the old name for native yellow arsenic ; sometimes it was also applied to the red variety, which, however, is more properly distinguished as realgar and sandarach. Orpiment had several uses : it was employed, for instance, as a dye, and to whiten brass ; Sir Thomas Browne suggested that it might be a useful ingredient of gunpowder on account of the sulphur it contains. In medicine it was used externally, mixed with lime, as a depilatory. It was also a common poison for dogs, but has long been superseded by quicker and more merciful agents. The name orpiment comes to us from the French.

C. C. B. [Several other correspondents thanked for replies j

GOATS WITH CATTLE (11 S. xi. 452, 500; xii. 39 ; 12 S. i. 16). The custom of keeping & goat with a herd of cattle has been pre- valent in North-West Durham for the past forty years to my knowledge. What the reason or effect was, or is, I cannot say, Taut one farmer in Satley parish, whose farm was the haunt of adders, always kept a billy goat on it, while he lived there, to go "with his cattle and sheep, for he believed

the goat killed and ate the reptiles, and so prevented them from doing any damage to his stock by " stinging " them. I used to doubt the killing and eating part of the business, until one day I saw Mr. Goat kill an adder by jumping on it and mangling it, and then bite it to pieces.

J. W. FAWCETT. Consett, co. Durham.

ARMS -OF ST. WILFRID (12 S. iii. 250). Is CICESTRENSIS'S query intended as a joke 2 Or does he really suppose that there can be any " authority " for the armorial blazon of a bishop who died at the beginning of the eighth century, foui hundred years before heraldic achievements came into existence ? Prioress Juliana Berners, it is true, held that the four Doctors SS. Jerome, Ambrose, Augustine, and Gregory, were " gentlemen of blood and coat-armour " ; and old Guil- lim (was it not ?) assigned td Adam before the fall a shield gules, whereon an escutcheon of pretence argent for Eve, she being an heiress! St. Wilfrid of York's right to a coat-armorial has about as much foundation as that of Adam and Eve.

D. O. HUNTER-BLAIR, O.S.B.

Fort Augustus.

The suns of Walcott became estoiles in ' The Heraldry of York Minster ' (vol. ii. pp. 380, 381), by the late Dean Purey-Cust. A shield on which three of these are displayed is sculptured with others on the interior of the lantern tower :

" This cognizance was assigned in mediaeval times to Wilfrid, Bishop of York 669-78, and again from 686-91. These estoiles may also be found in the third window west of the south nave aisle, and also in the third window west of the south choir aisle, and have a special interest' as consisting of seven points, emblematical of the sevenfold gifts of the Holy Spirit."

There is a beautiful coloured illustration of the former facing p. 385.

This is no answer to the question of CICESTRENSIS as to the authority for this blazon, but the jotting may be of use to him.

ST. SWITHIN.

Woodward's ' Ecclesiastical Heraldry ' (1894) takes no account of the arms " Azure, three suns or, two and one," attributed by Walcott to St. Wilfrid, as stated by CICES- TRENSIS. It is a pity that no authority was given for this attribution, as it might then have been seen which St. Wilfrid if there be more than one was intended.

If your correspondent is alluding to St. Wilfrid of Ripon, the following note taken from Dr. Woodward's book (p. 196) may be