370 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



[Nov. 10. 1855. 



dead mythology, a foreign nation, and an almost 

 forgotten hero? " What inference is meant to be 

 drawn from this Query I do not exactly perceive ; 

 but if your correspondent intends by it that the 

 vast majority of our " household words " did not 

 come to us from the coasts of the Baltic, why, I 

 have this alone to say — he is mistaken. Of the 

 131 words, for instance, contained in Gen. xliii. 

 25-29., only eight, and of the seventy-eight words 

 which make up the first ten lines of Thomson's 

 " Hymn," only thirteen, are not traceable to that 

 source. Wm. Matthews. 



Cowgill. ; 



The discussion in your columns respecting the 

 names of the evil one is surely imperfect without 

 Lavengro's view of the subject. He asks the 

 gipsy Petulengro : 



" ' What do you call God, Jasper ? * 



' I call God buvel, brother.' 



' It sounds very like Devil.' 



' It doth, brother, it doth.' 



' And what do you call divine, — I mean godly ? ' 



' Oh ! I call that duvelskoe.' 



' I am thinking of something, Jasper.' 



' What are j'ou thinking of, brother? ' 



' Would it not be a rum thing if divine and devilish 

 were originally one and the same word ? '" — Lavengro, 

 vol. i. p. 225. 



A gipsy woman at our door, being asked what 

 she called God, answered unhesitatingly, "Duv- 

 vel ; " and farther questioned as to the name of 

 our devil — the evil spirit — she replied, after a 

 minute's thought, " Oh ! you mean Beng."" 



Thomson, in his Etymons of the English Lan- 

 guage, says that Deuce, like Demon, seems to have 

 been once used in a good sense, and gives the 

 Persian Deio as one of the derivations of both 

 Deuce and Devil. He states that the Teule of the 

 Mexicans was a divinity ; and surely some myste- 

 rious connexion exists between the Zeus, 0€os, 

 Deus, Duiv, Welsh (whence Duwioli, to deify) 

 and the Deuce of bad report. The Welsh have 

 also Dwyv. The lani, the self-existent, making 

 Dwyvoli, to sanctify ! 



This Is remarkable, to say the least of it, and 

 may induce other philologists beside F. to dispute 

 the original meaning of the word Devil with Mr. 

 Mat.thews, who has stated it to be " merely a 

 modified form of the Scandinavian Dvl, fastus, 

 dissimulatio," &c. 



Mr. Borrow gives Del and Devlis as used for 

 God by the Hungarian gipsies. Is not the sub- 

 ject worth farther and more exact investigation ? 



H£BM£S. 



No. 315.] 



photogeaphic coerespondence. 



Mortuary Photographs. — A plodding reader of " N. & 

 Q." from the first number to the last, and an occasional 

 contributor, I have never been able to perceive the con- 

 gruity of the photograpliic department of our periodical, 

 nor can I cease to wonder at its continuance. I say this 

 as a most enthusiastic admirer of the art itself, which I 

 submit is based upon the most remarkable discovery of 

 the age, the claims of the electric telegrapli notwith- 

 standing. And here am I writing a photographic Note, 

 the insertion of which in the repudiated section would 

 be a fit punishment for my temerity. My object, how- 

 ever, is simply this : to direct the attention of those 

 " whom it may concern " to one use of the photogenic 

 science, which is perhaps not generally known — I mean 

 the copj'ing of mortuary memorials. What is done, or 

 what might be done inside a church, I do not know ; but 

 I have lately seen two or three specimens of head-stones 

 represented with so much truth and beaut}', tliat I can- 

 not but think this method of copying, and transmitting to 

 a distance, such memorials, only requires to be generally 

 known to be largely employed. In the cases referred to, 

 the single grave-stones came out so clearly, tlie lettering 

 was so sharp, and the accessories so pleasing, and I might 

 say picturesque, that none of the fine engravings on the 

 walls where these mortuary photographs were hanging, 

 surpassed them in pleasing effect. X. 



Conversion of Photographs into indelible Pictures, co- 

 loured and fixed by the Processes used in the Ornamentation 

 of Porcelain. — M. A. Lafon de Camarsac has communi- 

 cated to the French Academy of Sciences a process for 

 this purpose. He uses the metals and ceramic substances 

 to work upon, and employs vitrifiable compositions, on 

 which the pictures are produced. The image obtained 

 by means of the salts of silver on collodion, albumen, or 

 gelatine, is developed in the ordinary vrny until the half 

 tints have disappeared, and the extreme darks are covered 

 with a thick deposit, which gives it the appearance of a has- ' 

 relief. The plate is then placed in an enameller's muffle. 

 The organic matter is destroyed by the action of the heat, 

 and the image appears in all its minuteness. He uses 

 black, white, and coloured fluxes. On coloured porcelain 

 and glass, and on brown or black enamels, the lights are 

 formed by the metal, which is reduced, and which takes 

 a great brilliancy in the fire. On white porcelain and 

 enamels, and on transparent glass, he treats the lights 

 formed by tlie metallic deposit with solutions of the salts 

 of tin, gold, or chromium. In the latter case he obtains 

 different colours, very vigorous, and presenting a peculiar 

 semi-metallic brilliancy. A very thin coating, of a very 

 fusible flux, fixes the image, in the same way as gilding 

 and silvering is fixed on porcelain. Where enamel is 

 used, its fusion performs the same office. 



For pictures obtained by the action of light upon the 

 salts of chronium, after they have been treated with dis- 

 tilled water, they are placed in a muffle and subjected to 

 a heat sufficient to destroy the gelatin, and the metallic 

 deposit rests alone on the surface of the plate. Salts of 

 silver and lead placed upon it, give when heated a j'ellow 

 tone. Salts of gold and tin produce violet and purple ; 

 these colours are obtained beneath a layer of flux, which 

 melts and covers the metallic deposit, and the picture 

 presents the appearance of a painting on porcelain. 



