116 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



[2nd s. VII, Feb. 6. '69. 



King William, 8vo., 1703. Second impression, 

 1705. 



In his English Inquisition, 1718, Povey sets 

 forth seven persecutions he had been subjected to 

 " by the Whigs put into Posts of Profit." The 

 second of these directly allude to the anonymous 

 books in question : — 



" Imprisoned, with my Servants, for writing my two 

 large octavo Volumes, one Entitled Meditations, and the 

 other Hobj Thoughts; in which was proved King Wil- 

 liam's title to the Crown, and the Principles of the Revo- 

 lution maintained. It is true the Magistrates were 

 reprimanded, but no Compensation made for the Insult, 

 nor for the Money that affair cost me." 



J. o. 



Where does the Bay hegin ? (2"<' S. vi. 498.) — 

 I apprehend Mr. Husband's answer in last " N". 

 & Q." does not touch the point inquired about : 

 therefore I beg to offer my solution of the ques- 

 tion, as follows : — 



Let it be required at what particular part of 

 the world a given day (say the 21st March, 1859,) 

 will begin. 



As the natural day is formed by the revolution 

 of the earth round its axis in the twenty-four 

 hours, it follows of necessity that it will be noon 

 (and also the beginning and ending of each day) 

 at every meridian of longitude successively. In 

 like manner the year is formed by, the earth com- 

 pleting her annual course round the sun, and 

 returning to the exact point from whence she 

 commenced her journey. 



I find, on referring to Hannay's J.?mawac, that on 

 the 20th March at noon, Greenwich time, the sun is 

 in 359° 22' of longitude, wanting 38 minutes of lon- 

 gitude to complete the full complement of 360 

 degrees. On the 21st March, at noon, it has 

 passed through 21' 30'' of a new revolution : dur- 

 ing each of the twenty-four hours, therefore, it has 

 passed over 2' 29" of longitude ; which, omitting 

 fractions, will give 360 degrees at 3-20, Green- 

 wich time, on the 20th March. 



Now as soon as the 360 degrees are finished, 

 the new revolution commencing, it will follow 

 that at whatever point of the globe the first mo- 

 ment after 12 at night coincides with 3 20, 

 Greenwich time, there the new day will first com- 

 mence. In this case it will be found to be the 

 Pelew Islands, which will, as I understand it, be 

 the spot where the 21st March this year will begin. 

 Thus every day, too, will be found to begin in a 

 new locality. 



It is one of the great advantages of " N. & Q." 

 that it causes its readers to think. The above 

 question had never entered into my mind before ; 

 and its solution is the result only of a quiet whiff or 

 two, without reference to books. I make no pre- 

 tensions to mathematical skill, and therefore may 

 deprecate criticism, should I be in error. 



Edward King. 

 LjTnington, Hants. 



What is Gooff'X^-^^ S. vii. 9.) — 



"The patient is to give thejammabos as good an ac- 

 count as possiblj' he can of his distemper, and the condi- 

 tion he is in. Thejammabos, after a full hearing, writes 

 some characters on a bit of paper, which characters, as he 

 pretends, have a particular relation to the constitution of 

 the patient and the nature of his distemper. This done, 

 he places the paper on an altar before his idols, perform- 

 ing many superstitious ceremonies, in order, as he gives 

 out, to communicate a healing faculty to it ; after which 

 he makes it up into pills, whereof the patient is to take 

 one every morning, drinking a large draught of water 

 upon it, which again must be drawn up from some spring 

 or river, not without some mystery, and towards such a 

 corner of the world as the jammabos directs. These cha- 

 racter pills are called goof. It must be observed, how- 

 ever, that the jammabos seldom administer, and the 

 patients seldom resolve to undergo this mysterious cure, 

 till they are almost past all hopes of recovery. In less 

 desperate cases recourse is had to more natural remedies." 

 — The History of Japan, by Engelbertus Koempfer, trans- 

 lated into English by J. G. Scheuchzer, Lond. 1727 ; b. 

 iii. c. 5. vol. i. p. 235. 



FiTZHOPKINS. 



Garrick Club. 



Your correspondent H. iJ. A., who asks, " What 

 is goof?" in the phrase " pills of goof" occurring 

 in The State Sickness, 1795, appears to have fur- 

 nished a clue both to the meaning and source of 

 the word, by referring to a note which explains 

 goof as " Kampher." Camphor, according to Pe- 

 reira, is still given occasionally in the form of 

 pills. 



But what connexion is there between camphor 

 and goof? To answer that question, and to con- 

 nect the two words etymologically, we must go a 

 little farther back. Camphor was in medical La- 

 tin caphura, and in the Greek of the eleventh 

 century /cacfoupa ; the Arabic name is very similar. 

 Kopher, in Hebrew, is pitch ; but in our Au- 

 thorised Version (Song, i. 14. and iv. 13.), although 

 lexicographers appear to prefer the marginal ren- 

 dering "cypress," it is rendered camphire. Which- 

 ever is right, it is certain that the Hebrew hopher 

 becomes in Rabbinic hoofra, and that' kopher in 

 Jewish German signifies not only pitch, but re- 

 sin. Now the caphura or camphor, though not, 

 chemically speaking, a resin, has certainly, in its 

 crystalline or granular form, a very resinous ap* 

 pearance ; so that the term caphura may very 

 possibly have had some connexion originally with 

 the old koofra and kopher. 



Goof, then, the word which is now the subject 

 of our inquiry, appears, in its signification of cam- 

 phor, to be the commencing portion slightly mo- 

 dified, say vulgarised, of one or other of the old 

 words, caphura, caphura, kopher, or koofra. 



Thomas Boys. 



Dorsetshire Nosology (2"^ S. vi. 522; vii. 58.) — 

 Your correspondent C. W. B. is greatly mistaken 

 in supposing that "the rising of the lights" is a 

 local term ; and your other correspondent, W. S., 

 who finds the term in use in Berkshire, might 



