Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 5.djvu/472

 NOTES AND QUERIES. [9* s. v. JUNE 9, 1900.

freezing-point. To give one illustration, it would no longer be possible for a person to say, "It was fourteen by my thermometer last night," and leave the hearer in doubt as to whether the instrument fell to 14 or to 18 (or fourteen degrees of frost). Fahren- heit was elected F.R.S. in 1724. R. B. Upton.

" THE DEVIL WALKING THROUGH ATHLONE "

(9 th S. v. 336, 425). I keep to the above head- ing, though it is enough to make any good Irishman shudder. The devil never " walked" through Athlone. He went through it, according to a modern version, " in standing jumps," but according to the vernacular- speaking natives of the West Coast, as I knew them thirty years back, it was "in a lep [sic], a hop, and a standing jump." The phrase was always used of a hurling match or a faction fight, in which one side, or one particular hero of it, had " gone through " the opposing lines with unexpected rapidity and completeness. Hence its use as a threat by an Irish regiment to the so-called Irish Brigade in South Africa recently.

H. H. S.

On reading the paragraph in the Daily Chronicle when it appeared, I asked one of our workmen, a very intelligent Irishman, for the meaning. He told me it should be " Like the devil went through Athlone," not walked " cleared everything before him," and referred to Oliver Cromwell's cruelty. On my point- ing out that there were other places besides Athlone that felt the Protector's heavy hand, the man said that Athlone suffered most.

AYEAHR.

DICKENS AND YORKSHIRE SCHOOLS (9 th S. v. 354). A much earlier advertisement, sug- gesting the immortal one of Mr. Squeers, and including a specific reference to Greta Bridge, is to be found in the Times of 1 January, 1801. ALFRED F. BOBBINS.

THE DISCOVERER or PHOTOGRAPHY (9 th S. v. 26, 116, 365). I may supplement the infor- mation at the last reference as to the earliest photographic portraits. Apparently the first portrait was taken by Dr. John William Draper, a native of St. Helens, Lancashire, who emigrated to the United States, where he gained a high reputation in science and philosophy. He recorded his success in the Philosophical Magazine of September, 1840. The first portrait appears to have been taken in October or November, 1839. I have a woodcut from the photograph of Dorothy Catherine Draper. Dr. Draper's own account is reprinted in his ' Scientific Memoirs ' (1878).

See also 'Diet. Nat. Biog.' (vol. xvi.), New York Herald of 5 January, 1881, and an article contributed to the Field Naturalist (1883, p. 28) by WILLIAM E. A. AXON. Moss Side, Manchester.

Surely M. C. L. can hardly be ignorant of the belief (origin cannot be quoted) that photographs were taken long before 1840. It is asserted that the Lunar Society (spelt by the enemy Lunatic), of which Watt and Wedgwood were members, patented two methods of photographing. Specimens, it is affirmed, are in the Patent Office. Further, the society suppressed their invention at the request of Sir G. Beaumont, lest it should ruin art. H. J. MOTTLE.

Dorchester.

"SWOUND"=A FAINTING-FIT (9 th S. v. 356). This is an old variant of swoon. Palsgrave, in 1530, gives the form of the verb as swounde ; the form in Chaucer is swoune. The addition of d after an n preceded by a strong accent is a common phenomenon in English. It is discussed in my ' Principles of English Ety- mology,' vol. i. p. 370, where numerous ex- amples are given. One of the most striking is sound, sb., a noise, O.F. soun, from Lat. ace. sonum. A familiar example is heard in the use of gown-d for gown.

WALTER W. SKEAT.

There is no doubt that swound is another form of swoon. See Bosworth and Toller under 'Swogan'; also May hew and Skeat, 'Concise Diet./ under 'S wo woe.' Webster and ' The Imperial Dictionary ' also arrive at a similar conclusion. The d occurs in the cognate word sound. Halliwell, in addition to swelling the consensus of opinion, shows by a most interesting quotation that the soughing of the sea and the heavy breathing of a person in a fainting-fit are etymo- logically the same. Under 'Swoughe' he quotes :

Into the foreste forthe he droghe, And of the see he herde a swoghe.

This may mean only "a sound," but the picturesqueness of the statement in the second line will not be disputed, and the strength of its imagery cannot.

ARTHUR MAYALL.

" SWEEPSTAKES " (9 th S. v. 336). In ' A Dictionary of the Leading Technical and Trade Terms of Architectural Design arid Building Construction,' by the editor of 'The Industrial Self-Instructor,' n.d., pub lished by Messrs. Ward, Lock & Co., will be found, under the word * Sweep ' (in joinery), "a term used to indicate where