Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 8.djvu/313

 9* s. vm. OCT. 12, 1901.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

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graved on steel by W. H. Mote. He was an enthusiast, too impatient for a paradoxical world, and describes himself as the " Inventor of the New System of Boat Building by Machinery." W. C. B.

CROUCH FAMILY OF WILTSHIRE. I should be extremely grateful for any information bearing upon the above family. I find Crouches have resided in the following places : Orcheston St. Mary, Barford St. Martin (I have a rubbing of the Crouch brass in the church), Tytherington, Upton Lovel, Bowden, &c. Any particulars, no matter how small, will be very thankfully received and much appreciated.

CHAS H. CROUCH.

Nightingale Lane, Wanstead.

ROWE OF CORNWALL. It is stated in Daniel's ' Geography of Cornwall ' that a Rowe of Cornwall accompanied Prince Ed- ward, son of Henry III., to the Holy Land. Is it known to what part of Cornwall this Rowe belonged ; and is anything known as to his ancestors or descendants ? Where can 1 find the best account of the Black Prince's followers during this crusade ?

J. HAMBLEY ROWE.

" KELL" OR "KELD" = A SPRING OF WATER. Through what districts of the British Islands is this word still employed in the names of springs or wells 1 The wapentake of Halikeld, in Yorkshire, is said to have its name from a holy well. There is a Kell Well in the parish of Alkborough, Lincolnshire ; and if my memory does not play me false, I was informed many years ago that a Kell Well also exists in or near the parish of Yealand-Conyers, in Lancashire.

P. W. G. M.

" ABACUS." In chap. ix. of * The Talisman ' Sir Walter Scott gives a description of Sir Giles Amaury, the Grand Master of the Order of the Templars, as he presented him- self along with Conrade of Montserrat in the pavilion of the fever-stricken Richard Coeur de Lion. In that description the following words occur :

"The Grand Master was dressed in his white robes of solemnity, and he bare the abacus, a mystic staff of office, the peculiar form of which has given rise to such singular conjectures and commentaries, leading to suspicions that this celebrated fraternity of Christian knights were embodied under the foulest symbols of paganism."

Now I need not here state what the diction- aries say as to the various meanings of the word abacus, since all who possess dictionaries can see that for themselves. But it is im- portant to note what they do not say about

it. Neither the Oxford, nor any other dictionary that I have access to, anywhere assigns to that word the meaning of a " staff of office," or any meaning at all twistable into that.

It seems, then, reasonable to argue as follows : That use of it by Scott was either legitimate or it was not legitimate. If it was legitimate, why is it not mentioned in the dictionaries? If it was not legitimate, why has it not been challenged ?

PATRICK MAXWELL.

Bath.

OLD ENGLISH FISHTRAPS. In a recent number of Munsetfs Magazine there are illustrations showing some salmon traps still in use in North America. Traps of this kind for trapping salmon or other fish are still in use in Sweden, Norway, Finland, Russia, Hungary, and other European countries, and were in use in England also in former times, as they are mentioned in old chronicles. Is there any book or paper treating of ancient methods of fishing in Great Britain and Ireland, " embellished with cuts " showing traps and other gear and tackle in use for catching fresh- water fish 1 L. L. K.

ARMS ON DRINKING-CUP. I have inherited a silver drinking-cup (dated 1728-9), upon which is engraved the following achievement of arms : Gules, three fish naiant in pale. Crest, on a rock a falcon with wings ele- vated, holding in dexter talon a fish. The

letters

Do

TM appear on the handle.

these arms belong to any family of Starkey or Smith living at or near Darlington 1

A. R. BAYLEY.

St. Margaret's, Great Malvern.

WHITTINGTON AND HIS CAT. A corre- spondent in the Globe of 10 September states that the "cat" was a coal barge, and that the word is so entered in 'Johnson's Dictionary,' and is in use to this day on the Thames as the name of a flat barge. What evidence is thereof Whittington having been a coal merchant ? H. P. L.

ANCIENT BEACONS. Can any one direct me to accounts, in the Transactions of local antiquarian societies or elsewhere, of ancient beacons ? I am aware of the paper on 'Ancient Beacons of Lancashire and Cheshire,' read before the Lancashire and Cheshire Antiquarian Society by Mr. William Harrison on 14 January, 1898, and published in their Transactions (vol. xv. pp. 16-48).

T, CANN HUGHES, M.A., F.S.A.

Lancaster.