98
NOTES AND QUERIES. [11 s. vn. FEB. i, 1913.
FOUNTAIN PEN (11 S. i. 306, 395). In
' My Life as an Author,' by Martin F.
Tapper, p. 216," sundry inventions of mine,
which I found out for myself, but did not
patent, though others did," are recorded by
the author, and amongst them :
- ' 5. A pen to carry its own ink. The pen (I had
it made in silver, a long hollow handle ending with a conical point) either grew clogged if the ink was too thick, or emitted blots when too thin."
Seeing that the fountain pen was in use quite a century before Mr. Tupper, he could hardly claim to have been the inventor thereof, albeit his own construction may have been original. His impression and experience are, however, worth adding to the facts adduced at the references given above. Even the most up-to-date specimen of this indispensable invention is not always immune from mishaps similar to those endured by Mr. Tupper.
J. B. McGovEEN,
" NOTCH (11 S. vi. 366, 427, 470; vii.52). COL. NICHOLSON'S derivation for Pil. Cochice as given in Littre under ' Cochee,' seems the most feasible. It seems strange that C. C. B. has not met with this very old-fashioned pill in " notched rolls," which is the form in which it was, and is, most commonly sold. I speak with the experience of over sixty years. Instead of the pill mass being rolled into pills, it has been the custom to roll out the mass on the pill machine (say, 120 gr, for twenty-four pills), and then to put it on the cutting part and reverse the roller so that one side of the mass was notched, the other side plain. This was done for the convenience of the purchaser, who was thus enabled to break off the usual dose, viz., 5 grains.
The old " pill o' cosher," or " pil-e-cochia," was quite different from the " pilulse coccise " of the London Pharmacopoeia, and generally contained both colocynth and aloes as its most active ingredients. R. A. POTTS.
EARTH-EATING (11 S. vi. 290, 351, 397, 514). The ' Sung-hau-sang-chuen,' by Tsan-ning and others, completed in A.D. 988, gives the following story in its twentieth book :
"Ti-tsang, the Buddhist ascetic (705-803), was
born in Korea whence he came into China and
lived on Mount Kiu-tsze There his followers
increased, but provisions were scanty. He dis- covered under a rocky stratum an earth bluish- white in colour and with finely farinaceous appear- ance. At his instance all his communion used to eat it."
KUMAGUSU MltfAKATA.
Tanabe, Kii, Japan.
'!AN ROY' (11 S. vi. 510; vii. 54). I
wonder if your readers know a little book,
' Ian Roy of Skellater.' It is a life of
General John Forbes of the Portuguese Army,
written by Dr. James Neil, the Superintend-
ent of Warneford Mental Asylum, Oxford,
and brother of the late Mr. R, A. Neil (1852-
1901) of Pembroke College, Cambridge. It
was published by D. Wyllie & Son, Aberdeen ,
1902. J. M. BULLOCH.
123, Pall Mall, S.W.
Analecta Bollandiana. Toinus XXXI. Fasc. IV.
(Brussels, Socie"te" des Bollandistes. ) THE LATEST ISSUE of this valuable publication is not concerned with matters in themselves of special importance or interest. A study of the late Fr. Poncelet's on the biographies of St. Amelberga is given the first place, and at least illustrates the severity and acuteness of judgment with which the materials gathered in their investigations are handled by the Bollandists. Two texts the one Ethiopian, the other Arabic relating the passion of an obscure St. Anthony, are preceded by an interesting^ Introduction from the pen of Fr. Peeters, the outcome of which is to relegate the several portions of the legend to their divers mythical sources, and to discredit it as a whole. Fr. van Ortroy, in ' S. Francois d % Assise et son voyage en Orient,' had a subject of more general appeal. His article is directed towards controverting the rash statements of M. Hermann Fischer, who has lately proposed to revise the commonly accepted history of the years 1219 to 1221 in the saint's life in the light of the ' Speculum Perfections, ' with results which, in this paper, are successfully demolished. An interesting detail is the discussion of the meeting between St. Francis and St. Dominic, which M. Fischer would place in May, 1220, notwith- standing the fact that by that date St. Dominic had been for four years the recipient of favour on the part of the Pope, and would scarcely then have made to St. Francis the proposal, recorded by Celano, to fuse the two orders. The paper entitled ' La Translation de S. Hugues de Lincoln ' is a transcription by Fr. Poncelet of the con- cluding paragraphs of a thirteenth - century MS. found by him at Novara, made for the sake of bringing' to completion an edition of the ' Trans- latio ' lately published, which was done from a. fifteenth-century MS. lacking its proper end. The transcription would otherwise hardly have been worth while.
The reviews of books in this number are many and of great interest.
IT must be by accident that the new Edinburgh Review has a somewhat remarkable proportion of melancholy as an ingredient in the banquet of good' things it sets before us. Mr. E. B. McCormick's ' Civilization and Happiness,' indeed, carries melan- choly even to grimness. "To life," he concludes, " the human race is irretrievably condemned. ' From his point of view, civilization is but a more ex- quisite preparation for inevitable and increasingly
