2"<i S. No 92., Oct. 3. '67.] 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



277 



ceremony between any two persons not disabled, 

 without reference to their religious tenets, re- 

 mains to be considered. This point was discussed 

 in the case of Davis v. Black (Clerk), 1 Q. B. 

 Hep. 900. The exact point, however, was not 

 decided, the plaintiffs' pleadings being bad ; but 

 Lord Denman, C. J. was of opinion that the action 

 was maintainable if the refusal to marry was ma- 

 licious and without probable cause. Patteson, J. 

 said he had great difficulty on the point. It ap- 

 pears to me that, according to Lord Denman's 

 dictum, the answers to your correspondents' 

 Queries must be given in the negative. 



A Barbistee. 

 Dublin. 



Diameter of the Horizon (2"'' S. iv. 206.) — The 

 following is the required rule, as given by Vince, 

 Plumiaii Professor of Astronomy : 



" It appears by calculation, that when the eye of a 

 spectator is 6 feet above the surface of the sea, he can see 

 3 miles ; and at any other altitude of the eye, the dis- 

 tance at which you can see varies as the square root of 

 the altitude ; if therefore a be the altitude of the eye in 

 feet, and d the distance in miles which you can see at 

 that altitude, then 



3 

 •v/G : Va: :3 : c?=-7% X Va 



=1-2247 xVa; 

 hence we have this rule : Multiply the square root of the 

 height of the eye in feet by 1'2247, and the product is the 

 distance to which you can see in miles." 



The eye being at the height of 5 feet, the dis- 

 tance of the horizon is 2-7384292, not quite 2J 

 miles : the diameter will be of course twice this 

 distance. The refracting power of the air and 

 vapour extends the visible horizon ; irrespective 

 of which, the height being, as before, 5 feet, the 

 semi-diameter of the earth 20949655 feet, gives 

 the visible angle of the earth's surface as equiva- 

 lent to 2 minutes of space, or 12188 



(= 



20949655 x6-28318 \ 

 " 10800 -'' 



feet, nearly 2 miles 532 yards; hence the diameter 

 is equal to 4 miles 1064 yards by trigonometrical 

 calculation. (Lloyd's Math. Geog. U. K. S., p. 6., 

 where there is a typographical error of 9 millions 

 in the semi-diameter.) Tables for refractions are 

 supplied at the end of Callet's French edition of 

 Gardiner's Tables of Logarithms, where great ex- 

 actness is required. 



The highest molintain that has been measured 

 is the Dhawalgiri, 28,074 feet, with a difference of 

 445 feet in the respective measurements. North 

 of Thibet one is said to be 30,00* English feet in 

 height (Cosmos, i. 7.) ; therefore as V30000 X 

 1-2247=212-11804, more than 212 miles, the 

 double of which would be tlie diameter of the 

 horizon from that great elevation. Instead of the 

 multiplier 1*2247, the practice at sea is to use 1-3 

 as sufficiently near; but thia would carry the hori- 



zon of such a mountain too far by 13 miles in all 

 directions. T. J. Bockton'. 



Lichfield. 



Ambiguous Proper Names in Prophecies (2°'^ S. 

 iv. 201.) — An additional illustration of those de- 

 ceitful predictions which " palter with us in a 

 double sense " will.be found in the life of one of 

 the most contemptible of the many worthless 

 beings crowned with the imperial diadem of the 

 East. The circumstance about to be described 

 occurred in the year 476, and is thus stated in the 

 words of a French author : 



" Cependant Ze'non, qui auroit ete pour tout autre un 

 ennemi meprisable, faisoit dejk trembler Basilisque. II 

 avoit trouv^ dans les Isaures ses compatriotes tout le 

 courage dont il manquoit lui-meme. Les devins, qu'il 

 6:outoit comme son unique conseil, lui pre'disoient qu'au 

 mois de Juillet il se verroit dans Constantinople. Tous 

 les Isaures etoient soldats : ils lui eurent bientot formd 

 un corps de troupes capable de tenir la campagne. Illus 

 et son frfere Iroconde, ayant pass^ le Bosphore avec une 

 arm^e, allferent chercher les Isaures, et marcli^rent a Se- 

 leucie, d'oii Z^non n'avoit ose sortir. II ne les y attendit 

 pas, et s'alla renfermer dans une forteresse situee sur une 

 montagne de diflScile accfes. Les deux generaux I'y sui- 

 virent et I'y tinrent assi^ge. On dit que cette forteresse 

 se nommoit Constantinople ; et que Zenon I'ayant appris, 

 ne put s'empecher de reflechir sur la bizarrerie de son 

 sort, et sur Villusion de ces predictions frivotes qui trompent 

 meme lorsqu'elles se rencontre avec la verite." — Ch. Le Beau, 

 Histoire dtt Bas-Empire, liv. xxxvi. vol. iv. pp. 5G, 57. 

 (Paris, 1819.) 



W. B. MacCabe. 



Perhaps the oldest story of an ambiguity as to 

 dying in Jerusalem is that which is related of 

 Sylvester II. (Gerbert), He made, it is said, a 

 brazen head, which answered questions affirma- 

 tively or negatively. On his asking " Ero aposto- 

 licus," it replied " Etiam." On his asking " Mo- 

 riar antequam cantem missam in Jerusalem ? " 

 the answer was " Non ; " and in reliance on this 

 he neglected repentance, until one day death came 

 on him in a Roman church which bore the name 

 of Jerusalem. See Will. Malmesbur. Gesta Re- 

 gum, § 172 ; and for the different versions of the 

 legend, Hock's Gerbert, Wien, 1837. J. C. R. 



Anne, a Male Christian Name (2°"^ S. passim.) 

 — A grant of arms was passed in 1584 to Anne 

 AVardell of Caen, in Normandy, gentleman, de- 

 scended from John Wardell, a gentleman of Eng- 

 land who established himself in France in 1417. 

 Thos. Wm. King, York Herald. 



MS. Note in Locke (2"<i S. iv. 189.) — The 

 maintenance of the position, "that the same thing 

 is and is not," first enunciated by Heraclitus, " the 

 naturalist," may be seen in the Parmenides of 

 Plato, who is represented by Alcinous and Al- 

 binus as a natural philosopher. This doctrine is 

 far from defunct, for Hegel's axiom is, "being 

 and non-being are the same" (" Seyn und nichts 

 ist dasselbe"). He has a just title to that of 



