250 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



[No. 124. 



phraseology, that they are more likely in future to 

 keep too far \yithin bounds from over caution, than 

 once more wildly to overleap them. 



" The only way to account for your conduct in this 

 respect, is to suppose it owing entirely to inadvertence. 

 You were merely amusing yourself, like the boys in 

 the fable, unmindful that your sport might perhaps 

 prove death to a set of poor frogs. But ought you not 

 to have remembered the golden rule of Christ, never to 

 do unto others what you would not choose to have 

 done to yourself? Are you not still smarting under 

 the blows you so lately received from the battle-axe of 

 Wat Tyler? Believe me, sir, communities have feeling 

 as well as individuals. In the days of your ignorance, 

 as you will now call them, you wrote what you are at 

 present ashamed of. To have composed Wat Tyler, 

 you feel to be little congenial with the spirit that ought 

 to dwell in a poet-laureate. When that unfortunate 

 effusion of your pen was officiously dragged into light, 

 did it not touch you to the quick ? And why ? Be- 

 cause you repented that you had ever written it. IFe 

 repent of having written and said those things which 

 occasi(>ned Rimius' trumpet to sound. We have re- 

 peatedly declared that we do repent, and our conduct 

 has proved the truth of our declaration. Must we not, 

 tlierefore, feel pain at seeing our old delinquencies, 

 long forgiven and forgotten, once more coupled with 

 our name by a man of your respectable character and 

 abilities? Is not the pain we feel the very impress of 

 what you have felt, and still feel, on the score of Wat 

 Tyler ? " — From a Pamphlet printed at Bristol, 1 820. 



Sigma. 



ARCHAIC AND PROVINCIAL WORDS. 



(Vol. v., p. 173.) 



In pursuance of my recommendation I now send 

 to "i!^. & Q." the following; provincial and tech- 

 nical words, as taken from the published evidence 

 -given before the coroner at the inquest on the 

 Holmefirth catastroplie. Technical names have 

 been there used, which are either strange or un- 

 known even to many engmeers, and which no 

 flictionary that I am acquainted with contains. 

 The inquiry is, however, one of such general in- 

 terest at this time, as connected with the recent 

 fearful loss of life, and enormous destruction of 

 property, that I also give some words, the mean- 

 ing of which is not so obscure. The names of the 

 reservoir which was bursted, and of the village 

 whicli sutTered most damage, may be taken first. 



Bilberry Reservoir: Bilberry is the local name 

 of a berry growing on a heath shrub ; a species of 

 Vacci'nium: the genus consists of about fifty species. 

 This berry, in England, is known as wimberry, 

 blueberry, blaeberry, blae, whortleberry, whort 

 and huckleberry ; Saxon — heort-herg, hartberry ; 

 German — heidel-beere, heathberry ; Dutch — 

 blaauwbes, blueberry. The reservoir, no doubt, 



covered a site on which VaccVnium .Myrtilliis, the 

 common bilbej^ries, grew. 



Holmefirth : this name may be from Iiolm, the 

 Ilex, the evergreen oak ; or holm, a tract of flat 

 rich land on the bank of a brook or river. Frith, 

 a passage or narrow channel ; or frith, a kind of 

 " iveir''' for catching fish. 



Greenhowlers : the name of a place where one 

 of the witnesses resides. Holder, or Owler, Alnus 

 glutinosa, the common alder, a tree or shrub 

 growing in damp places, in plantations and hedges, 

 mistaken by the ignorant for the hazel. To send 

 a boy " nutting amongst the howlers" is to put 

 him upon a fool's task. This word is common 

 in Lancashire and Yorkshire. 



Fall is applied to a number of trees cut; down. 



Fresh : a flood of water from heavy rain. 



Drift : a small tunnel made for mining or en- 

 gineering purposes. 



Drift, in mechanics, a piece of steel or iron 

 used to back a bolt, or to widen a bolt-hole. 



Dyke: a small water-course or river. 



Dyke, in geology, a protruded wall of basalt or 

 whin rock. 



Goit : a small artificial water-course leading to 

 a mill or reservoir. 



Runs: small dykes. 



Bye-wash : an artificial water-course, to allow 

 of the escape of flood waters from a reservoir. 



Rag : a term for shale. In geology, thin-bedded, 

 slaty strata. 



Sludge or Sludgy : mud or muddy. 



Puddle : prepared clay, tempered to form a 

 wall in a reservoir bank, or a lining to resist 

 water. 



Ptiddle-bank, Puddle-wall, and Puddle-dyke mean 

 the same. 



Culvert, Sewer, and Sovgh mean almost the 

 same ; an arched channel of stone or brick for 

 water or refuse to pass through. The first be- 

 longs more properly to water-works ; the two 

 latter are synonyms applied to town drainage, 

 " Sough " being Lancashire. 



Shuttle, Sluice, Valve, Clongh, Paddle : these 

 five names are synonyms ; they mean that portion 

 of tlie apparatus which slides, or is drawn up and 

 let down, to inclose or let out the water of an 

 artificial stream or reservoir. 



Swallow : the inner portion of the culvert, or 

 the throat which leads from the inner side of the 

 reservoir to the '■'■shuttle," the outer portion being 

 the supply-culvert. 



Valve : an apparatus to retain or let out water, 

 steam, &c. A valve may slide as the shidtle, paddle, 

 or sluice must do; or it may rise with a spindle, 

 vertically, as in the safety-valve of a steam boiler; 

 or may move on spindles or a hinge, as in some 

 large pumps; or be in the form of a b:dl, and play 

 loose in a case, as in a fire-engine pump : there 

 are other forms of valves. Throttle-valve, a valve 



