Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 6.djvu/282

 232 NOTES AND QUERIES. p* s. vi. SEPT. 22,1900. surname also had de before it. I* believe Devon Huishes are all family estates. The fact of some of these estates or places being far from the Stamm-kaus offers no more diffi- culty than occurs in hundreds of similar cases •where property changes hands and takes the name of the new owner. I have known an estate fresh named within the past few years. Moreover, there are plenty of Afons, Iscas, and Glenesks very far from water. When I am proved to be wrong I will frankly admit it, out, however "pre-scientific," I am not to be convinced by mere assertion. F. T. ELWORTHY. THE VOLCANIC ERUPTION AT KRAKATOA (9th S. vi. 185).—MR. FORD and ME. BOUCHIER will find in the Times, 8 Dec., 1883, an article (nearly four columns) 'On the Recent Sunrises and Sunsets,' by Dr. J. Norman Lockyer, also a leading article on the same subject. It was my good fortune some years after to hear the same gentleman deliver a lecture at the London Institution on the same subject to a crowded audience. I have no doubt some of your readers had the same privilege ; it was, indeed, a great treat. A very elaborate report was published for the Royal Society in 1888 by Messrs. Triib- ner & (Jo. A committee was formed, and the first meeting was held 5 Feb., 1884, all the members being present. It was resolved that a letter inviting assistance should be pre- show the amount of heavy work done by the various authors and who are responsible for the several arguments and opinions. The labour was not completed until the spring of 1887. This work runs into some 494 quarto pages. There are four pages of double columns giving some of the principal books and papers published respecting the phenomena reported upon in this volume, in all languages. In Nature, vols. xxviii. and xxix. are many notices; among them. Prof. Milne-Edwards, in the Paris Academy of Sciences, 25 Jan., read a letter from a correspondent at Reunion, in which he stated the intensity of the sky-tints was always greatest where the showers of volcanic ashes had been observed. I think this "earthquake dust" has the sanction of most scientific men. CHAS. Q. SMITHERS. 47, Darnley Road, Hackney. THE HOLY ROOD OF LISLE (9th S. vi. 190).— " Lisle," short for "Lisleburgh," means Edin- burgh (see Jamieson's 'Scottish Dictionary,' art. ' Lisleburgh'). The Holy Rood, to which the abbey was dedicated, was an elaborately wrought golden casket in form of a cross, and, being said to contain a fragment of the true cross, was an object of great veneration. It was captured from the Scots at the battle of Neville's Cross and placed in St. Cuthbert's shrine at Durham Cathedral, whence it dis- appeared in the Reformation period, and has pared for insertion in the Times and other periodicals. The following is a copy of that letter :— THE KRAKATOA ERUPTION. SIR,—The Council of the Royal Society has ap- pointed a committee for the purpose of collecting the various accounts of the volcanic eruption at Kra- katoa and attendant phenomena, in such form as shall best provide for their preservation and pro- mote their usefulness. The committee invite the communication of authenticated facts respecting the fall of pumice and of dust, the position and extent of floating pumice, the date of exceptional quantities of pumice reaching various shores, observations of unusual disturbances of baro- metrical pressure and of sea level, the presence of sulphurous vapours, the distances at which the ex- plosions were heard, and exceptional effects of light and colour in the atmosphere. The committee will be glad to receive also copies of published papers, articles, and letters bearing upon the subject. Correspondents are requested^to be very particular in giving the date, exact time (stating whether Greenwich or local), and position whence all re- corded facts were observed. The greatest practicable precision in all these respects is essential. All communications to be addressed to C. J. SVMONS, Chairman, Krakatoa Committee. Royal Society, Burlington House, Feb. 12th, 18&i. Mr. Symons says the volume itself will not since been heard of. F. ADAMS. EARLY IRISH IN ICELAND (9th S. vi. 170).— In the celebrated 'Landnabok,' or land roll of the first settlers in Iceland—the authority of which, I believe, is not disputed —we reau as follows :— " Before Iceland was settled by the Northmen, there lived men there called by the Northmen 'Papse.' These men were Christians, and are be- lieved to have come from the West over the sea, for there were found Irish books and various instru- ments whence it was known that they were West- men. These things have been found in Papey, an island on the east coast of Iceland, and in Papyle." Ireland was always called " West Country " by the Northmen from its position in respect of Norway, their original home. These facts are mentioned in several other ancient and authentic MSS. CONSTANCE RUSSELL. Swallowfield, Reading. AUTHOR OF POEM WANTED (9th S. v. 497).— The men who lived in Dublin in the sixties cannot be all dead ; and there was not a man-jack of them then who could not have answered MR. SCHLESINGER'S query, from the archbishop to the car driver. But as no one speaks I must answer from this distance.