$28 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



[No. 153. 



was the maiden name of that lady. If he, or any 

 other of your correspondents, could give me in- 

 formation on that point, it would be duly esteemed. 



Jaytee. 



Mummies in Germany (Vol. vi., pp. 53. 205.). — 

 A. A. refers to the church on the Kreutzberg, near 

 Bonn, where the dead monks are shown as dry as 

 mummies. 



At St. Thomas, in Strasburg, there are the 

 bodies of a Count Nassau Saarmerden, and his 

 daughter, in a shrivelled state, having been kept 

 above a century. 



I have also seen a head of a woman of the Bra- 

 zilian aborigines, whose features were quite per- 

 fect, though dried up, with jet black hair between 

 four and five feet long, and supposed to be five 

 hundred years old at the least. Agmond. 



^ A far larger collection of these than that at 

 Kreutzberg exists at a Capuchin convent near Pa- 

 lermo. ^ Here the bodies are placed in a series of 

 niches in a subterranean cloister ; out of which 

 they hang, horribly grotesque, in every variety of 

 attitude. Besides the bodies of members of the 

 order, there are those of others who have chosen to 

 be buried in their habit ; ladies too, dressed in every 

 sort of finery, and carefully placed standing or lying 

 behind glass or wires. In one place a number of 

 children form a sort of cornice to the vault ; in 

 another they are preserved in glass cases like 

 stuffed birds. Besides these, the floor is half 

 covered with piles of coffins of all shapes and 

 colours, duly ticketed with the names of their 

 occupants. ^ The process by which the bodies are 

 preserved is said to be simply the enclosing them 

 for six months in an air-tight cell, after which 

 period the cell is opened, and they are found com- 

 pletely mummified. Chevekells. 



In your 142nd Number I find stated, that the 

 bodies of certain monks in a church on the Rhine 

 have been preserved, as it is thought, by the 

 "peculiar character of the atmosphere." They 

 are described as soft as in life, but of a brownish 

 hue. I have recently seen seven bodies in St. 

 Michan's Church, Dublin, which are preserved 

 solely by natural causes peculiar to the vaults of 

 > that church, perhaps in common with those exist- 

 ing in the church of Kreutzberg alluded to by 

 your correspondents ; and, as I see, the same is 

 observed in a church at Bordeaux. 



In the vaults of St. Michan's Church, however, 

 the bodies are not soft, but dry, and the skin 

 rather hard like parchment, and of a brownish 

 colour. C. F. M. 



RemarhaUe Trees (Vol. vi., p. 254.).— On the 

 westside of the churchyard of AVinchelsea, Sus- 

 sex, is a wide-spreading ash, which the inhabitants 

 of that interesting old town point out as the tree 



under which John Wesley preached his last open- 

 air sermon. J. Th. 

 Kennington. 



I first heard the statement of the age of the 

 linden-tree at Freyburg, on the spot, as a well 

 authenticated tradition ; and I observe it is 

 mentioned in the Conversations-Lexicon, article 

 " Freyburg," without a doubt of its accuracy. 



Agmond. 



Roman Road in Berkshire (Vol. vi., p. 271.). — 

 The road Mr. Hodges mentions is a continuation 

 of that which, under the name of the Devil's Ditch, 

 or Gryme's Dyke, passes from Buckinghamshire 

 through a corner of Oxfordshire, and, crossing the 

 Thames near Wallingford into Berkshire, is con- 

 tinued in the direction which Mr. H. describes. 

 On the Oxford side of the Thames, between Monge- 

 well and Nuffield, it extends for about two miles, 

 a double bank with a deep trench between. It is 

 marked in the Ordnance Map, and I see that it is 

 indicated in Walker's map also. It is, I believe, 

 the Ikenield Way, but there is some doubt re- 

 specting it. In the excellent Map of Ancient 

 Britain published by the Society for the Diffusion 

 of Useful Knowledge, the Ikenield Street (under 

 the name of the West Ridge) is made to cross the 

 Thames a few miles below Wallingford, i. e. near 

 Streatley. Your correspondent has doubtless in 

 his "country walks" in the neighbourhood come 

 upon the traces of its prolongation westward along 

 the summit of the Ilsley Downs, and away to the 

 range of the White Horse ? J. Th. 



Kennington. 



St. Augustimis " De Musica" (Vol. v., p. 584. ; 

 Vol. vi., p. 88.). — St. Augustine's treatise is chiefly 

 on the laws of versification, but interspersed with 

 such observations on the nature of consonances, as 

 show him to have been very well skilled in the 

 science of music as then practised. It may be 

 found in the Basel edition of his works, 1569, 

 torn. i. p. 310. ; and in the Antwerp edition, 1700, 

 tom. i. p. 329. Two ancient MSS. of the De 

 Musica of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries 

 are preserved in the British Museum, Royal MS. 

 11. E. xi., and Harl. MS. 5248. 



The Bodleian Library is said to contain a MS. 

 tract on music by St. Augustine, different from 

 the "six books" which form the above-named 

 treatise. Edward F. Rimbault. 



Raspberry Plants (Vol. vi., p. 222.). — Some 

 eight or ten years since, in one of my summer ex- 

 cursions, I fell in with the proprietor of some ex- 

 tensive nursery and garden grounds, who told me 

 that a year or two before he had been present at 

 the opening of a tumulus, wherein lay the skeleton 

 of a young person ; that towards the lower part of 

 the back bone a lump of something was discovered 



