LONDON, SATURDAY, JANUARY 2, 1886.
QUERIES:-Tunisia-Bell of the Hop-Platform-Belgium.
7-Highland Kilt-Hon. Mrs. Norton-Lothair-MS. of
Game of Chess'-Proverbial Phrase-Scotch Names of
Fishes-Irish Parliament-Pigott - Hacket's Life of Wil-
liams-"Hang sorrow"-'Multiply's Merry Method,' 8-
'Rapids of Niagara'-J. Thurloe-W. Harries-Cogers' Hall
-Scotch Traders in Sweden-Latin Poem-Carisbrook Castle
-"The Eight Braves"-Classical Jingle, 9.
REPLIES:-Coronation Stone, 9-Burgomasco Venetian
Glass-Peerage of Scales, 11-Hore Nausea '-Clerk of the
Kitchen-W. H. Swepstone-Double Tuition Fee-Abp.
Augustine, 12-Josselyn-Feet of Fines-Pope's 'Iliad, 13
-Eis-Shields of Twelve Tribes-'Paradise Lost' in Prose
-Bosky-Nuremberg Nimbus-Author of Pamphlet-Hol-
bein-Become: Axes, 14-R. Wharton-Inscriptions on
Wells Coligny-Tyrociny-When was Burns born? 15-
"Morrow-masse preest". W. Longsword Billament
Father and Son Bishops-"Pull Devil"-Talbot, Earl of
Shrewsbury, 16-Seal of Grand Inquisitor-Scochyns-Act
of Union-Cronebane Halfpenny, 17-Jury List-Arms of
Halifax-Bartolozzi: Vestris, 18.
NOTES ON BOOKS:-Uzanne's La Française du Siècle'
Hulbert's Supplementary Annals of Almondbury'
Grove's Dictionary of Music.'
Notices to Correspondents, &c.
Among the "chief things of the ancient moun-
tains and the precious things of the lasting hills"
preserved in the British Museum is a certain
rudely chipped flint, which once formed part of
Sir Hans Sloane's collections, bequeathed by him
to the nation at his death in 1752. In the Sloane
Catalogue it is thus described :-
"No. 246. A British weapon, found with elephant's
tooth, opposite to black Mary's near Grayes inn lane
Conyers. It is a large black flint, shaped into the figure
of a spear's point, K."
The references to "Conyers" and "K." are, for-
tunately, fully explained in a letter on London
antiquities written by Mr. John Bagford to
Thomas Hearne, the antiquary, and printed among
the introductory matter to Hearne's edition of
Leland's 'Collectanea.' The whole passage runs
cary formerly living in Fleet-Street, who made it his
chief Business to make curious Observations, and to
collect such Antiquities as were daily found in and about
London. His Character is very well known, and there-
fore I will not attempt it. Yet this I must note that he
was at great Expence in prosecuting his Discoveries, and
that he is remembered with respect by most of our
Antiquaries that are now living. 'Tis this very Gentle-
man that discovered the Body of an Elephant, as he was
digging for Gravel in a Field near to the sign of Sir
John Old-Castle in the Fields, not far from Battlebridge,
and near to the River of Wells, which tho' now dryed up
was a considerable River in the time of the Romans.
How this Elephant came there? is the Question. I
know some will have it to have layn there ever since the
Universal Deluge. For my own part I take it to have
been brought over with many others by the Romans in
the Reign of Claudius the Emperour, and conjecture (for
a liberty of guessing may be indulged to me as well as to
others that maintain different Hypotheses) that it was
killed in some Fight by a Britain. For not far from the
Place where it was found, a British Weapon made of a
Flint Lance like unto the Head of a Spear, fastned into
a Shaft of a good Length, which was a Weapon very
common amongst the Ancient Britains, was also dug up,
they having not at that time the use of Iron or Brass, as
the Romans had. This conjecture, perhaps, may seem
odd to some; but I am satisfied my self, having often
viewed this Flint Weapon, which was once in the Pos-
session of that Generous Patron of Learning, the Reve-
rend and very Worthy Dr. Charlett, Master of University
College, and is now preserved amongst the curious Col-
lections of Mr. John Kemp, from whence I have thought
fit to send you the exact Form and Bigness of it [a coarse
woodcut of the flint occupies the next page]. This dis-
covery was made in the presence of the foresaid Mr.
Conyers, and I remember that formerly many such bones
were shown for Giants-Bones, particularly one in the
Church of Aldermanbury which was hung in a Chain on
a Pillar of the Church; and such another was kept in
St. Laurence's Church, much of the same Bigness. All
which bones were publickly to be seen before the dread-
ful Fire of London, as it appears to me from the Chro-
nicles of Stow, Grafton, Munday, &c."*
Who or what the "black Mary" referred to in
the Sloane catalogue may have been I know not;
but although she has long since been topographic-
ally dead and buried, her silent ghost still per-
petually revisits its former haunts. In Cary's map
appears
of London in 1792 "Black Mary's Hole"
as part of an unnamed continuation of Coppice
Row, immediately before it passes Bagnigge Wells,
a spot identifiable in the London of to-day as that
part of Cross Street fronting the Clerkenwell
House of Correction. "Black Maria" for at least
some five-and-twenty years has been a favourite
London synonym for a prison van, and it seems
difficult to avoid the conclusion that the first
vehicle to which the name was applied was the one
which conveyed its duly qualified passengers to
this establishment at Clerkenwell, situated exactly
opposite black Mary's." I note here, moreover,
two other etymologies. The House of Correction
is known to its frequenters as The Steel," a fact
*Leland's Collectanea,' Hearne, second ed., vol. i.
"And here I cannot forget to mention the honest
Industry of my old Friend Mr. John Conyers, an Apothe- p. lxiii.