Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 8.djvu/57

 9ts.vm. JULY is, 1901.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

49

shoehorn lifts up the heel of the shoe on to the foot.

In Low Furness the phrase " Let 's have a shoehorn " is similar in intention to that of Bishop Still quoted by MR. MACMICHAEL but in this district the ale itself is the " shoe- horn," a glass of ale being drunk by a person while out for a ramble as a " put on " until a substantial meal can be had.

In Cleveland, North Yorkshire, at sales by auction, instead of " shoehorn " the term usec is a " pricker," and it refers to the person who (privately) bids without any intention pi buying, and thus "goads" others on to bic properly.

HARPER GAYTHORPE, F.S.A.(Scot.).

Barrow-in-Furness.

" LAKE," A PRECIOUS STONE (9 th S. vii. 506). Since writing the note on this subject I hare found that Garcia de Orta says, in his * Col- loquio XLIV.' (' Das Pedras Preciozas,' &c.) :

"The alaqueca, so called by us (which in Arabic is called quequi), is worth a Castilian real for a pound [arratel] of this stone cut in small pieces ; and this stone possesses a stronger virtue than all others ; for it stanches blood much quicker."

Linschoten also, in the eighty-sixth chapter of his first book (I quote from the old English translation as reprinted by the Hakluyt Society), speaks of " the stone called Alakecca, [which] is also called Bloodstone, because it quickly stancheth blood." As is noted in the index to the Hakluyt Society's Lin- schoten, alakecca, alaqueca, &c., represent Arab. al-'akik = cornelian. Capt. Stevens's attempt to naturalize the word in English as lake does not seem to have found favour with any other writer ; and, as I have already mentioned, even he himself appears to have subsequently repented of his boldness.

DONALD FERGUSON.

Croydon.

The stone referred to appears to be the "Mocha stone" or "moss agate," which is found in large numbers, and of a very fine quality, in some of the old lava rocks in Cambav or its vicinity. There are in these fibrous - looking crystals of oxide of manganese or an oxide of iron brown if the former, and red or yellow if the latter ; the remainder of the lava steam-hole having been, according to the laws of the formation of agates, filled up with either pure or nearly pure chalcedony, or with cacholong (chal- cedony rendered opaque or milk-white, com- monly from an admixture with milk opal), or with both.

These " Mocha stones " or " moss agates " when cut and polished show the crystallized

oxide of manganese orironlikedendritic mark- ings in the chalcedony or cacholong giving a varied, curious, and often very beautiful appearance in the sometimes almost opaline- looking surrounding and thus are largely used for jewellery. ALEXANDER THOMS. St. Andrews, N.B.

UNMARRIED LORD MAYORS (9 th S. vii. 428, 513). Thomas Kelly (1772-1855), Lord Mayor 1836-7, was a bachelor. See * Passages from the Private and Official Life of the Late Alderman Kelly,' by the Rev. R. C. Fell, 1856, p. 101. Kelly was a very enterprising bookseller and publisher, and the forerunner of John Cassell in the issue of various useful and interesting works in parts. Was not Alderman Allen, head of W. H. Allen & Co., publishers, Waterloo Place, Lord Mayor between 1860 and 1870, also a bachelor ?

WM. H. PEET.

ENGLISH ORATORY (9 th S. vii. 427). Refer to Cornhill Magazine, vol. ii., 1860; 'Irish School of Oratory,' vol. ii., new series, 1897 ; Macmillaris Magazine, vol. xxxv., 1876-7.

EVERARD HOME COLEMAN. 71, Brecknock Road.

RUNGS OR ROUNDS OF A LADDER (9 th S. ii. 386, 430, 492, 530 ; iii. 75, 116, 158, 231, 295). Rung in speaking of the steps of a ladder has been familiar to me, but I nave never heard round as its equivalent. In "An English

Dictionary by E. Coles," London, 1696

(which edition is not mentioned in the Cata- logue of the British Museum nor in the list of this author's works in the * Dictionary of National Biography,' whence arises the ques- tion, Is its date a misprint of 1676 ?), one finds "Roundel, a ball (in heraldry)"; " Runge, Northumberland dialect, a flasket"; and " Rungs, the ground-timbers which gives [sic] the floor of the ship"; and also " Ronges 'query ranges), old word for the sides of a [adder." Probably Coles was wrong in say- ing sides. His suggestion of ranges to explain the word is interesting. His book gives some words which are not recorded in the * H.E.D.' The latter leaves the origin of haberdasher an open question. Coles suggested German Habtithredas (sic), probably meaning habt 'hr cfos?="have you that?" (as he himself renders it.) This recalls vasistas in French,

common word for window, made up of three German words = " What is it?"

E. S. DODGSON.

Louis XVI. : ACCOUNT OF HIS DEATH (9 th

S. vii. 448). A short, but very interesting

account of the death of Louis XVI. is given

n the 'Memoirs of the Sansons,' edited by