Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 4.djvu/102

 198 NOTES AND QUERIES. [9'" s. iv. SEPT. 2, m THE MAGNETIC POLE (9th S. iii. 447, 493).— Prof. Leist, of Moscow, is said at the first reference to have discovered a local magnetic pole—i.e., a place where the needle points vertically north and south — namely, at Kochetovka, in the government of Kursk. The Golden Penny adds, " We believe this is the first and only case of the kind on record." This opinion is quite unlike that of Peter Heylin, who in his ' Cosmographie' (London, 1652, i. 240) tells U8 :— "Modern geographers have removed the first meridian from the Fortunate Isles, where it had been fixed in the time of Ptolemy, to St. Michael's in the Azores. And this remove seems countenanced even by nature herself, it being observed that the compass when it cometh under the meridian drawn through this isle hath little or no variation at all, but pointeth almost directly towards the north, whereas in all other places east and west it pointeth not so directly north, &c. And yet it is observed of late that there is some more sensible variation of it in this isle than in that of Corvo, which there- fore is conceived more fit for this first meridian." JAMES D. BUTLER. Madison, Wis., U.S.A. MUMMY PEAS (9th S. iv. 145).—This is not the first time that mummy peas have come into notice. The Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of Newcastle - upon - Tyne, 1887, vol. iii. p. 170, has to this effect:— " Capt. Robinson said that he had a few things which he purchased in Egypt, which he thought that the Society might accept—among these some mummy wheat and barley. In the course of his remarks, in reply to a question, he observed in respect of mummy peas: ' Mr. Barr, seedsman, of Covent Garden, told him that some ono came to him and gave him a great curiosity in the shape of a pea, which had been found in unfolding a mummy. He planted the pea, and found it one of the best specimens he had ever seen of Veitch's Perfection." ED. MARSHALL. This is an old fallacy under a new name. The fact is denied hy scientific botanists and Egyptologists. The seeds are "sham antiquities," supplied as required to the credulous. Mr. Sowerby, of the Botanic Gardens. Regent's Park, says that this " fiction has more vitality than seeds of any kind." The earliest instance I know is in the Illustrated London News, 28 August, 1847, p. 135 ; it also forms the point of a paper, 'The Mummy Wheat' issued in July, 1896, by the Scottish Monthly Visitor Tract Society. See more in 'N. & Q.,' 6th S. ii. 306, 415, 452 ; iii. 135,158, 212, 278 ; iv. 173 ; 8th S. i. 224, 363, 479 ; ii. 55, 187, 296 ; iii. 246 ; ' Considerations on the Vital Principle,' by John Murray, 1837; Smith's 'Dictionary of the Bible,' 1863, i. 498, iii. 1745 ; a long corre- spondence in the Standard, 21 to 26 September, 1894, and in the Spectator, 6 to 27 October, 1894. W. C. B. ASTARTE says, " Perhaps some one can tell us what evidence there is for the antiquity of the seed." I obtained some from a medical man in Scotland, who informed me his grand- father had taken them from a mummy in Egypt and brought them to this country in the fifties (1850-9), and that they are edible. I planted mine and they grew to a great height, the haulm being very strong and the greatest curiosity about the pea. The flowers are in clusters or seven (generally), and are pink and white ; in size they are smaller than our English field peas, and resemble the sky-blue pea of Australia (a vetch ?), which I also grow (flower enclosed). The seed of Ptolemy lathyrus is brown speckled and not unlike the common par- tridge field pea. I enclose a few for your inspection, and should be happy to give ASTARTE, or any of your readers interested in these peas, a few of the seeds. They are a sufficiently interesting curiosity, but as a garden flower insignificant, and for culinary purposes an inferior cropper, but, considering their antiquity, show our peas have not made so great an advance under cultivation in that direction as might be thought. M. B. WYNNE. West Albington Rectory, Grantham. [We have regarded with much interest the seeds and growths MR. WYNNE encloses.] NOTES ON BOOKS, ftc. Calendar of Letter-Books of the City of London.— Letter-Book A. Edited by Reginald R. Sharpe, D.C.L. (Privately printed.) WITH the admirably competent assistance of Dr. Sharpe, the Library Committee of the Corporation of the City of London is rendering yet one more service to the historian and the antiquary. This consists in reprinting what in the Guildhall archives are known after their lettering as the Letter-Books. These consist of fifty volumes, lettered from A to Z and from AA to ZZ, with two extra volumes marked respectively " &c." and " AB," and cover a space of time extending from the early years of Edward I. to the closing years of James II. Scholars are aware of the use that has been made of them in the ' Memorials of London Life' of Mr. H. T. Riley. The earlier volumes, the first of which is now printed, are of highest interest, containing as they do, among other things, the only available records of the proceedings of the Court of Common Council and Court of Aldermen previous to the fifteenth century. The contents have been utilized in the ' Liber Horn' and the ' Liber Albus,' and by chroniclers such as Fabyan and Stow. Letter- Book A is principally occupied with recognizance! of debts contracted withm the period covered,