Page:Notes and Queries - Series 12 - Volume 4.djvu/63

 12 8. IV. FJSB., 1918.]

NOTES AND QUERIES.

57'

sleeping- place of John the night before he " signed " ; but a reference to his Itinerary shows that he betook himself to the security of Windsor Castle each night, being much too wary to trust himself in any unfortified dwelling with his enemies under arms close by.

So I am afraid that "Magna Charta" Island, and the ta'ble also, must be classed, with the " oak mentioned in Domesday," among the things which are not.

FREDERIC TURNER. Frome, Somerset.

I think there are very grave doubts as to the actual signing of the Magna Carta by King John upon this table. From a description which has been supplied to me it appears that what is known as the " Charter Stone " is an octagonal slab " infixed in a massive frame of oak forming a kind of table." Mrs. S. C. Hall visited the island when writing her ' Pilgrimage to English Shrines' (1853). She gives the inscription on the stone as follows :

"Be it remembered, that on this island, in June, 1215, John, King of England, signed the Magna Charta, and in the year 1834 this building was erected in commemoration of that great and important event by George Simon Harcourt, Esq., Lord of the Manor, and then High Sheriff of the county."

The oak framework or table is probably coeval with the building, and the preten- sions of the stone must be taken cum grano salis. JOHN T. PAGE.

Long Itchington, Warwickshire.

ONION v. MAGNET (12 S. iii. 503). A conversation I had lately with a friend who is a woollen manufacturer may possibly throw some light on this. He told me that whenever two metals are in contact in the presence of an acid, electrical action is set up. As evidence he cited two examples. The first was from his own factory, where some of his dyestuffs were lost in an iron vat, till he discovered that a copper pipe touched the iron. On the two metals being disconnected, the loss in dyestuffs ceased. The second was a fact observable by any one in London streets, viz., that the lower ends of railings in front of houses tend to wear to a point. This, he said, was due to the fact that they were socketed in lead. The amount of acid in the London atmosphere a fact of which everyone is cognizant in its effect on all articles of copper, bronze, brass, or silver, as compared with similar articles kept in the country set up an electric discharge, and corroded the iron.

I know nothing of science myself, and seek to obtain, rather than to give, information ; but may not the above afford some clue to what may be an accidentally discovered and imperfectly explained scientific fact ? A chemist or electrician could doubtless throw, light on the subject. W. M. CROOK.

Devonshire Club, St. James's, S.W.I.

' POCAHONTAS,' A POEM (12 S. iv. 17).

The poem with this title, consisting of four stanzas of nine lines each, is by Thackeray. It is introduced in vol. ii. chap, xxxii. of ' The Virginians.' The poem appears again in Thackeray's ' Ballads,' where may be? also found the lines headed ' From Poca- hontas,' which Theo is made to send her husband to console him for the failure of his tragedy. EDWARD BENSLY.

[Other correspondents also thanked for the reference.]

ENGLISH TRAVELLERS ON THE VLACHS (12 S. iv. 1). One old English traveller has evidently escaped your correspondent's notice ; I mean Thomas Herbert, who in his ' Relation of some Yeares Travaile, be- gvnne Anno 1626 ' (London, 1634), relates the following incident while travelling in the English ambassador's suite in Persia between Larr and Shiraz :

" A mile from this Towne [Techoa or Dea-chow] we see threescore blacke Pauillions, wherein we found nothing, but what gaue mirth and beautie- These are a people, who liue wholy in Tents, and obserue the custom es of the Tartars ; they haue no certaine habitation, they delight in motion, they graze and feed here and there, with all their substance. The Persians stile them Vloches or

Shepheards "P. 54.

L. L. K.

MARY BOLLES, " BARONETESS " : DEBORA SPEELMAN, " BARONETESS" (12 S. iii. 419). According to the ' Complete Baronetage ' by G. E. C. [Cokayne], vol. ii., 1902, p. 414, Mary Bolles, of Osberton, in Worksop, co. Nottingham, widow, was created a Baro- netess (Nova Scotia) Dec. 19, 1635, with re- mainder after the dignity of Baronet "to her heirs male and assignees," with a grant of, presumably, 16,000 acres in Nova Scotia, of which she never had seizin.

She was a daughter of William Wytham of Ledsham, co. York, and was baptized 1 June 30, 1579 (?) 1879 is an obvious mis- print at Ledsham. Her mother was Eleanor, daughter of John Neale of co. Northampton. She married firstly Thomas Jopson, of Cudworth, in Royston, co. York ; and secondly (1611), as his second wife, Thomas Bolles, of Osberton aforesaid, and