366 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



[2'>'i S. VII. April 30. '59. , 



The Californian Trees (2°^ S. vii. 200.) —In 

 answer to the inquiry of H. S. I will briefly give 

 the history of these trees, by which it will appear 

 the proper name is Wellingtonia, and not Wash- 

 ingtonia gigantea. Mr. Lobb, who was out in 

 California collecting for the Messrs. Veitch of 

 Chelsea, discovered, in 1853, on the Sierra Nevada 

 range, in lat. 38° N., long. 120° 10' W., at an ele- 

 vation of 5000 feet above the sea level, a clump of 

 these trees. Seeds and a young plant reached 

 England in December, 1853, and particulars of 

 the discovery, together with Mr. Lobb's account, 

 were published by Professor Lindley in the Gar- 

 dener's Chronicle for December, 24, 1853, and the 

 name of Wellingtonia gigantea given to the giant 

 tree. "Wellington," he says, "stands as high 

 above his contemporaries as the Californian-tree 

 above all the surrounding foresters Em- 

 perors, and kings, and princes have their plants, 

 and we must not forget to place in the highest 

 rank among them our own great warrior." The 

 Illustrated News for February, 11, 1854, con- 

 tained a drawing, and Chambers's Edinburgh 

 Journal for March 25, 1854, additional informa- 

 tion. Not long after this two enterprising Ameri- 

 cans felled, and conveyed to New York, at a cost 

 of 400^. one tree, which, when standing, measured 

 363 feet from base to top. The New York Mir- 

 ror announced its arrival "as a giant tree, which 

 has been named by botanists Washingtonia gigan- 

 tea." Professor Winslow of San Francisco, as I 

 gathered from a cutting from a San Francisco 

 paper, became very indignant at its being named 

 in England Wellingtonia, and said (I quote from 

 memory, having lost the paragraph) "it was like 

 the audacity of the Britishers giving the name of 

 Wellington to a tree found on American soil, and 

 that as Washington was by far a greater general 

 than Wellington, the name ought to he Washing- 

 tonia." Now, if right of discovery and priority of 

 naming are to have weight in this, as in all other 

 cases of botanical or zoological discovery, then 

 Wellingtonia was the first and proper name. 



T. W. WONFOB. 



Brighton. 



Clem (P' S. vii. 615. ; viii.64.)— Halliwell spells 

 this verb clam (i. 251,), to starve, and the noun 

 plural clams, he says, are forceps or pincers with 

 long handles to pull up thistles or weeds. In the 

 black country clem is the pronunciation, and is 

 applied to the want of food. In German klemm 

 means pincers, and the phrase in der hlemme seyn 

 signifies "to be in great straits, to be in distress." 

 Goethe uses the intensitive of klemm, — 



" Mein herz, beklemmt und kalt," — 



in translating Voltaire's 



" Mon cceur, sans mouvemens, sans chaleur et sans vie." 

 Mahomet, Act II. Sc. 1. 



T. J. BUCKTON. 



Lichfield. 



Art of Memory (2"'i S. vii. 257. 304.)— I have 

 little doubt that the lecturer alluded to by F. C. 

 H. was the author of the following work : — 



" A System of Mnemonics ; or a New Aid to Memory 

 simplified, and adapted to the General Branches of Liter- 

 ature ; with a Dictionarj' of Words used as Signs of the 

 Arithmetical Figures, and" illustrative Engravings. By 

 Thomas Coglan. London. 8vo. 1813." 



Some copies have a new title-page, dated Liver- 

 pool, 1852. Coglan's system is merely a variation 

 of Feinaigle's. 



I may remark that The New Art of Memory, 

 founded upon the Principles taught by M. Qregor 

 von Feinaigle, London, 1812, 1813, was written 

 by Mr. John Millard, assistant librarian at the 

 Surrey Institution. Thompson Coopeh. 



Cambridge. 



" One of the simplest systems of mnemonics is the plan 

 which used to be resorted to by the ancient orators,' of 

 connecting in their minds the different parts of a speech 

 with, different parts of the building in which it was deli- 

 vered." — Penny Cyc. xv. 90. 



The succession of forty English sovereigns, by 

 conceiving a panel for each in a room, or ten on 

 each wall, may be easily thus recollected ; and 

 the dates of their accession to the throne are re- 

 called by taking certain ten consonants for the 

 figures in each date (omitting the thousands), as t 

 for 1., n for 2., s for 0., &c., and by introducing 

 vowels ad libitum, thus forming words to attach to 

 each sovereign's name, or to an abridgment of 

 such name. Dr. Grey (London, 1730) is the best 

 known, if not the best author, on this subject. 



T. J. BuCKTON. 



Lichfield. 



Leathern Money (2°^ S. vi. 460. ; vii. 137.) — la 

 the second volume of Norfolk Archaeology, 1849, 

 published by the Norfolk and Norwich Archseo- 

 logical Society, is a curious paper by the Rev. 

 John Gunn, entitled " Proverbs, Adages, and Po- 

 pular Superstitions, still preserved in the Parish 

 of Irstead." These are mostly taken down from 

 the lips of a famous old washerwoman, Mrs, Lub- 

 bock. At p. 305. we are told : — 



" ' King John cleared the crown of leather money. First, 

 he used it when there was not money enough to carry on 

 business with ; and then he cried it down when he had 

 got a supply of proper money. The people considered 

 him rather silly ; but he had sense enough to do that.' 

 She remembers, when a child, playing with King John's 

 leather monej'. It was stamped like gingerbread; and 

 of the shape of gun- wadding." 



Ache. 



Gandergrass (2""^ S. vii. 117.) — Is not the 

 " pale gandergrass " more likely to be the goose- 

 grass {Potentilla anserina'), which grows so plenti- 

 fully by roadsides and in meadows, and whose leaf 

 is so singularly white as to merit the appellation of 

 " pale," far better than the Orchis mascula sug- 

 gested by Mr. King ? M. E. M. 



