414 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



[2nd s. No 99., Nov. 21. '57. 



made. All these hard shifts and exigents hath he been 

 put unto to preserve them ; and preserved they are, by 

 Providence, for the use of succeeding ages, which will 

 scarce have faith to believe that such horrid and most de- 

 testable villanies were ever committed in any Christian 

 Commonwealth since Christianity had a name." 



The following memorandum is annexed to the pre- 

 ceding : — 



" This is erroneous. The Collector, Mr. George Tho- 

 mason, died 16G6. See his Will at Doctors' Commons, 

 wherein a particular mention is made of 'the Pamphlets, 

 and a special trust appointed, one of the trustees being 

 Dr. Barlow. George Thomason, to whom this letter is 

 addressed, was eldest son of the Collector, and a Fellow 

 of Queen's, Oxon. 



" G. G. Stonestreet, 

 " Lineal descendant of the Collector." 



A subsequent notice of this Collection of Tracts is con- 

 tained in the following document, preserved in the British 

 Museum : — 

 "♦At the Court at Whitehall, the 15th of May, 1684. 



*' ♦ By the Kings most excellent Ma'y and the Lords of 

 his Ma'" most Hon^'<' Privy Councill. 



" ' The humble peticon of Anne Mearne, relict of Samnell 

 Mearne, his Ma*» Stationer, lately deceased, being this 

 day read at the Board, setting forth, That his Ma*y was 

 pleased, by S'' Joseph Williamson, the Secretary of State, 

 to command the petitioner's husband to purchase a collec- 

 tion of severall bookes, concerning matters of state, being 

 above thirty thousand in number, and being vniformly 

 bound, are contained in two thousand volumes and vp- 

 wards ; and that by reason of the great charge they cost 

 the pet" husband, and the burthen the}-^ are upon her selfe 

 and familjs by their lying vndisposed of soe long. There- 

 fore most humbly prayes his Ma*' leave to dispose of the 

 said collection of bookes, as being a ready way to raise 

 money upon them to support her selfe and family : His 

 Ma'y in council was graciously pleased to give leave to 

 the Pef to dispose and make sale of the said bookes as she 

 shall thinke tit. Phi. Lloyd." 



After the period herein mentioned, no farther informa- 

 tion appears to have been preserved concerning this Col- 

 lection, excepting that it was bought by John Stewart, 

 second Earl of 13ute, for a sum under 400Z. ; and again 

 sold to King George III. for the same amount in 1761, by 

 whom the volumes were presented to the British Museum, 

 which had been then recentlj'^ founded.] 



Fairy Rings. — There are at present four of 

 what are called fairy rings on Kinning Park 

 Cricket Ground, near Glasgow. They were first 

 observed about two months ago, when several of 

 the members of the Clydesdale Cricket Club were 

 daily practising, and apparently were made in the 

 course of a night. The superstition respecting 

 such circles has doubtlessly arisen from their 

 sudden and unaccountable formation ; and the 

 poetical way of clearing up the difficulty, by as- 

 cribing them to the saltatory exercises of the 

 people from fairyland under the moonlight, or, 

 if dark, with a glow-worm for their lamp, and a 

 drone-beetle or grasshopper for musicians, has 

 not, so far as I am aware, been forced, even in 

 these prosaic times, to retire before the unveiling 

 hand of minute and incredulous research. I have 

 sought to find an explanation of the phenomenon, 

 but without success. However, to describe these 



appearances more particularly. Each ring is only 

 a belt of grass of a much darker green than that 

 surrounding it, or which it encompasses, and is 

 from eight to ten inches broad. The two largest 

 are ten and nine feet, and the others six and five 

 feet in diameter, measuring from the centre of 

 the belt. Their distinctness, almost mathema- 

 tical precision, and the rapidity of their coming, 

 nre the most remarkable features of these circles. 

 Can any of your correspondents tell how they are 

 produced ? R. M. 



Glasgow. 



[In a Paper on the '" Fairy Rings of Pastures," read 

 by Prof. J. T. Wray, before the British Association at 

 Southampton in 1846, and reported in The Athenmum of 

 Sept. 19, it was stated " that the grass of which such 

 rings are formed is always the first to vegetate in the 

 spring, and keeps the lead of the ordinary grass of the 

 pastures till the period of cutting. If the grass of these 

 fairy rings be examined in the spring and early summer, 

 it will be found to conceal a number of agarics, or ' toad 

 stools,' of various sizes. They are found situated either 

 entirely on the outside of the ring, or on the outer border 

 of the grass which composes it. Decandolle's theory, 

 that these rings increased by the excretions of these fungi 

 being favourable for the growth of grass, but injurious to 

 their own subsequent development on the same spot, 

 was remarked on, and shown to be insufficient to explain 

 the phenomena. A chemical examination of some fungi 

 (the true St. George's Agaric of Clusius — Agaric grave- 

 olens) Avhich grew in the fairy rings on the pasture 

 around the College at Cirencester, Avas made. They con- 

 tained 87*46 per cent, of water, and 12'54 per cent of dry 

 matter. ' The ashes of these were found to contain — 



Silica - 

 Lime 

 Magnesia 

 Perox. iron 

 Sulphuric acid - 

 Carbonic acid 

 Phosphoric acid 

 Potash - 

 Chloride sodium 



1-09 



1-65 



2-20 



trace. 



1-93 



3>80 



20-49 



55-10 

 0-41 



" The abundance of phosphoric acid and potash, ex- 

 isting, no doubt, as the tribasic phosphate of potash 

 (3K0, PO5), which is found in these ashes, is most re- 

 markable. The author's view of the formation of these 

 rings, is as follows : — 'A fungus is developed on a single 

 spot of ground, sheds its seed, and dies: on the spot 

 where it grew it leaves a valuable manuring of phosphoric 

 acid and alkalies — some magnesia and a little sulphate 

 of lime. Another fungus might undoubtedly grow on the 

 same spot again ; but upon the death of the first the 

 ground becomes occupied by a vigorous crop of grass, 

 rising like a phoenix on the ashes of its predecessor.' It 

 would thus appear that the increase of these fairy rings 

 is due to the large quantity of phosphated alkali, mag- 

 nesia, &c., secreted by these fungi ; and, whilst they are 

 extending themselves in search of the additional food 

 which they require, they leave, on decaying, a most 

 abundant crop of nutriment for the grass."] 



" The Felicitie of Man." — I have an old quarto 

 volume in my possession which uTifortunately 

 lacks title-page. The running-title is The Feli- 

 citie of Man, or his Summum Bonum ; it is in six 

 books, and ends on page 717. ; page 718. is blank; 



