July 24. 1852.] 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



73 



But bitter beer was not confined to northern 

 Europe. That the Egyptians also used to brew 

 beer we know, on the authority of Herodotus : 

 " Olvcf) 5' iic Kpidfoiv ireiroirifiivcf) diaxpeuvTai' oh yap ff<pi 



And we have it on Rabbinical tradition, that the 

 Eabyhmian bitter beer — with the good sallets they 

 had, — like the Stogumber ale, preserved the Jews 

 from the leprosy, which had so much afflicted 

 them : 



" In Babylonia non erant ulcerosi quia ibi edebant 

 blitura vel betam, et bibebant siceram veprium, id est, ex 

 lupuUs confectum (de la biere>" — Ketuhhot, fol. 77. 2. 



What Other early evidences have we of the use 

 of hops ? and was the "^^^ (sicerd) of the Hebrews 

 beer ? AV. Eraser. 



Slaves in Ireland not a Century ago. — The 

 Bublin Mercury, No. 283., Aug. 16, 1768, con- 

 tains the following matter-of-fact advertisement : 



•' A neat l)p'*utiful black Negro girl, just brought 

 from Carolina, aged eleven or twelve years, who under- 

 stands and speaks English, very fit to wait on a lady, 

 to be disposed of. Application to be made to James 

 Carolan, Carrickmacross, or to IMr. Gavan in Bridge 

 Street, Dublin." 



Sevarg. 



Kilkenny. 



Book Margins. — Let me call attention to a 

 defect which mars most books that issue from our 

 home press, the scantiness of margin, and especially 

 of back margin. The continental press retains far 

 more of that ample margin which enhanced the 

 beauty of early printed books. Now, many valu- 

 able works, and from the hands of our best 

 printers, are so cropped as to be hardly readable, 

 even in boards, and absolutely incapable of binding. 

 It is a matter not merely of taste, but of use and 

 comfort; and the ordinary reader, as well as the 

 bibliomaniac, would gladly pay a higher price for 

 a book he could read before and after binding. 

 In a thick volume this often amounts to a serious 

 inconvenience. Mariconda. 



Lord De7-by or Dai-by (Vol. v., p. 567.). — 

 H. W. S. T. does not know that the earl takes his 

 title not from the county of Derby, but the hun- 

 dred of West Derby in Lancashire, where both 

 place and title are by gentle and simple always 

 pronounced Darby. VVhy should not Lancashire 

 pe-o-ple say Darby, when Londoners say Marry bun 

 and Pell Mell, and call their river the Tems ? 



P.P. 



lunar occultations. 



There is a singular phenomenon, sometimes ob- 

 served at the time of the occultation of fixed stars 



by the moon, of which no satisfactory explanation 

 has yet been given. Though conjectures have 

 been made as to the cause of it, by most of those 

 best qualified to make them, still nothing conclu- 

 sive has been published or generally received on 

 the subject. 



The phenomenon in question is this : when the 

 moon approaches a star, at the time of an occidta- 

 tion, instead of an instant of contact with the limb 

 of the moon, and then the sudden disappearance of 

 the star, the latter is sometimes observed to hang 

 on the edge of the disc, and even to pass on to the 

 disc itself, as if about to cross it, and when fairly 

 on the disc to disappear. 



Some ascribe this phenomenon to an atmosphere 

 surrounding the moon, which reflects the sun's 

 light, and appears opaque like the moon's surface, 

 but is sufliciently transparent to allow the stars to 

 appear through it. Others refer it to the eye of 

 the observer, and suppose the impression of the 

 star to remain on the retina after the star itself has 

 disappeared. Sir John Herschel says, " It is barely 

 possible that a star may shine on such occasions 

 through deep fissures in the substance of the moon." 

 A good many letters on the subject appeared in 

 The Times newspaper in March or April, 1845, 

 from Sir James South and others ; who suggested 

 a great variety of explanations, but with no satis- 

 factory result. 



The solution I am now about to ofier appears to 

 me so obvious, and so unlikely on that account to 

 have escaped those better qualified than myself to 

 give an opinion on the subject, that I give it with 

 considerable hesitation. I conceive that this phe- 

 nomenon is a third proof of the gradual transmis- 

 sion of light : in other words, when the star itself 

 is actually hidden by the moon's limb, I apprehend 

 that the light, which proceeded from it at the 

 moment before actual contact, is still on its way to 

 the earth, and remains visible therefore after the 

 star itself has disappeared. The interval that 

 light occupies in travelling from the moon to the 

 earth is, as near as may be, 125 seconds, which, 

 combined with the angular velocity of the moon in 

 her orbit, is amply sufficient to project the star 

 visibly on her disc. 



A singular circumstance connected with this 

 phenomenon is, that stars of a red hue exhibit it 

 more generally than others ; and the bright star 

 Aldebaran, whose light is reddish, has been much 

 oftener observed to do so than any other. I my- 

 self saw the phenomenon for the first time with 

 Aldebaran, on the 15th of April, 1850, very dis- 

 tinctly ; and nothing occurred on that occasion but 

 what is satisfactorily and fully met by the preced- 

 ing explanation. 



The red rays, we know, are at the least refran- 

 gible end of the spectrum : can we Infer from this 

 peculiar phenomenon that they are also the slowest 

 in transmission ? 



