Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 3.djvu/142

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NOTES AND QUERIES. [10* s. in. FEB. n, IMS,


" fragment in a vault at Dunfermline." I am quite pleased that those interested should judge between the notes under this heading, together with the authorities named.

ALFRED CHAS. JONAS.

THE CHILTERN HUNDREDS (10 th S. ii. 441, 516 ; iii. 18). MR. SHORE will find some appreciable additions to his information in the 'New English Dictionary,' s.v. 'Chiltern,' and in the works there cited. Q. V.

DRYDEN PORTRAITS (10 th S. i. 368, 435 ; ii. 18). The portrait belonging to the Rev. John Dryden Pigott is probably at Sundorne Castle, near Shrewsbury, as that gentleman took the name of Corbet and succeeded to that estate. (Mrs.) HAUTENVILLE COPE.

13c, Hyde Park Mansions, W.

EPITAPHS : THEIR BIBLIOGRAPHY (10 th S. i. 44, 173, 217, 252, 334 ; ii. 57, 194, 533). What is the source of the lines quoted by Dr. Forahaw at the head of his monthly collec- tion of curious epitaphs in Yorkshire Notes and Queries ?

I copied the following rendering of the last two lines from an old stone in the southern portion of Lutterworth Church- yard, Leicestershire, in 1881 :

Praise wrote on tombs is vainly spent ;

A man's best deeds is his best monument."

JOHN T. PAGE. West Haddon, Northamptonshire,

QUEEN'S SURNAME (10 th S. -ii. 529). What the surname of the Danish royal family is I do not know. But surely the querist is aware that the name of the present royal family in this country is not Guelph, but Wettin. Guelph was the name of the Hanoverian line, of which Queen Victoria was the last. Our King begins a new dynasty, which will probably be called by future historians the Saxe-Coburg (or per- haps the Gothic) dynasty, or some such distinctive name, as the name of the Angevin dynasty was taken from the father of Henry II. Our rulers have always retained their paternal name, whether Plantagenets, Tudors, Stuarts, Guelphs, or Wettins.

J. FOSTER PALMER.

.8, Royal Avenue, S.W.

KANT'S DESCENT (10 th S. ii. 488). The tradition that Kant was of Scottish descent is not injured by the name being found in Suffolk. Thousands of Scots are in that district to-day because of the fisheries. From there to Holland is an easy voyage, and I find "Andrew Kant" (or Cant) in 1721, of Dort, Holland, in Public Record Office Assignment


Books, appointing attorneys in London to receive his Exchequer dividends. Some of the Cants voyaged from Leith to Norway and Sweden circa 1700. W. YOUNG.

20, Hanover Street, N.

Is MR. RIVERS acquainted with the infor- mation given in the question raised by a previous correspondent ? See 7 th S. viii. 267.

EVERARD HOME COLEMAN. 71, Brecknock Road.

BLOOD USED IN BUILDING : SUGAR IN MORTAR (10 th S. ii. 389, 455 ; iii. 34, 76). Reference having been made to the use of sugar in India as an ingredient in mortar, it may be worth adding that in The Times of 13 and 16 October, 1886, appeared four letters headed ' A New Use for Sugar.'

The first, signed Thomson Hankey, speaks of equal quantities of finely powdered lime and good brown sugar, mixed with water, producing a cement of exceptional strength, and of the said cement having been tried at Peterborough Cathedral, two large pieces of stone of the broken tracery of a window having been firmly joined together by sugared mortar. Mr. Hankey says that it has been successfully used for joining glass, the severest test. He states that the lime must be thoroughly slaked, and that he believes that sugar mortar will be found to be as good as Portland cement. He suggests that it is pro- bable that Portland cement would be made much stronger by the addition of sugar, and that treacle might have the same effect. It had been suggested to him that the use of sugar is the secret of the success of the old Roman mortar.

The second letter, signed W. Robert Cornish, surgeon-general, says : " In India the practice of mixing 'jaggery,' or unrefined sugar, with mortar in certain proportions, is a very ancient one." He says also that in the latter part of the eighteenth century, when Hyder Ali's horse threatened the settlement of Madras, the people were called upon to build a wall. This wall existed until 1859, when Sir Charles Trevelyan, the then Governor, had it removed. But so firmly was the brick- work held together that the greatest difficulty was found in the demolition of the town wall. The separation of the bricks from the mortar was quite impracticable. He adds that fourteen years ago (i.e., in or about 1872), in examining some old records, he came across the original specification of the Government for the composition of the mortar for the wall, and that it included a certain quantity of " jaggery," to be mixed with shell lime and river sand. He sent the receipt to The