226
NOTES AND QUERIES. en s. v. MAR 23, 1912.
allied to O. Slav, tomiti, to vex, and to the
Irish tamaim, I rest, and tdm, death. See
also Uhlenbeck's ' Skt. Etym. Diet.,' s.v.
tdmyati, where the same allied forms are
cited, and a note is added that the idea
express 3d in the root was probably " to
become dark " ; cf. Skt. tamas, darkness.
In any case, there is no suggestion as to "" spreading " ; and the " rest " referred to is not that of quiet repose, but of choking., death ; or of stagnation ; or of darkness. The words " quiet " and " still " are in- sidious glosses upon " resting," made to afford some sort of epithet for our river ; they are quite unjustified.
The root-senses of a Celtic tarn- seem to have come from a root meaning either to choke, to stagnate, be at rest, or else to be dark. There is nothing satisfactory to be obtained in any case.
ft is safest to say that we do not know what Tamesis really meant. To go on repeating that it means " the quiet," or " the still," is to say what we must know to be unsupported by any evidence. Neither is the application of such an epithet to our river very appropriate. WALTER W. SKEAT.
SIR BENJAMIN C. BRODIE ON VENTILA- TION. The existing buildings of St. George's Hospital, Hyde Park Corner, were, with the exception of a few extensions, completed in 1833. The occasion was celebrated by a banquet in aid of the building fund and the publication of
' An Account of the Proceedings of the Governor? of St. George's Hospital, near Hyde Park Corner, from its First Institution, Oct. 19, 1733, to Doc. 31, 1832,' &c.
On p. 49 of the copy before me Sir Ben- jamin C. Brodie, the famous surgeon, has underlined the passage I am about to quote, and added the note which follows :
' It is well known that the closeness of the wards in the Old Building ha.s long been a subject of the deepest regret to the Physicians and Sur- geons, who have observed its effect in preventing or retarding the cure of their Patients."
N.B. This is all nonsense. Complaints of this kind were once indeed made, but then those were peculiar times dark days of Ignorance and necessity, when any (or) the most trifling plea for a new and larger Hospital, with a larger number of Patients, was considered of sufficient import- ance to be urged as an incentive to the liberality of the Public. But the end has been gained, and the above deceptive plea is now discarded. The necessity is just, and more enlightened days have come ; for it is a brilliant discovery of modern times that the sick poor thrive much better in a highly contaminated atmosphere than in a pure one. B. C. B."
ALECK ABRAHAMS.
ROMAN COINS. The Rev. John Wood
Warter, B.D., in the first volume of his
second edition of ' Southey's Commonplace
Book,' a work which now wins but little
attention, tells us that
" Whitaker says upon this subject, ' Great deposits of coin are never found in or m-ar the Roman stations : but almost always near some line of march, where sudden surprises might bo expected.' On the contrary, within the precincts of the greater stations, small brass is found scattered in such profusion, that it can scarcely be conceived not to have been sown like seed, by that provident and vain-glorious people, as an evidence to future ages of their presence and power in the remoter provinces. Should the sites of our great towns, in the revolutions of ages, be turned up by the plough, how few in comparison would be the coins of England scattered beneath the surface ! Design I think there must have been in these dispersions. The practice of scattering the Missilih in their games, will not account for a fact so t^neral in their greater stations."
We are given to understand that the above is from the ' Musaeum Thorebyanum.' The small and rudely made brass coins of the later Roman Empire in this kingdom are widely scattered. At Kirton-in-Lindsey children of the present day are occasionally found playing with them. As at the outset they were so carelessly made, I cannot but think they were always employed as toys rather than for circulation.
EDWARD PEACOCK, F.S.A.
" You MAY GO LOOK." To find this old Lancashire expression in a local. ( Rochdale) Manor Survey of 1634 wa? a surprise to me:
"Robert Kershaw died seized and Alexander Kershaw was admitted, but whether son or his kindred you may go look."
The sense in which it is here used exactly agrees with what is meant by the expression at the present time.
The same scribe in 1626 thus describes a marriage :
" The father conveyed these lands in his life- time to George his son by a second venture, George, his eldest son by a former venture, being living." This furnishes a record of the rather rave occurrence of two sons with the same Christian name, both being alive.
HENRY FiSHwrcK.
GEORGE WASHINGTON MEMORIAL IN IRELAND. At Belcamp, Coolock, co. Dublin, is a small tower (with an inscription), built by Sir Edward Newenham in 1778 in honour of Washington. Newenham was a great admirer of the American leader, and corresponded with him. The erection of the tower, when the War of Independence had been raging for three years, is noteworthy. WILLIAM MACARTHTJR.
