Apkil 9. 1853.] 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



367 



ing which he has attributed to them : — wyrm ; hy, 

 hya, to inhabit ; Jecc ; diofiil; dobl, equivalent to 

 doalig : goepung; a heap ; lacan ; ', loppe ; nebb ; 

 sniitbig, contagion ; stceth, a fixed basis. 



Eldon is Icelandic, from elldr, fire : hence we 

 have " At sla elld lir tinnu," to strike fire from 

 flint ; which approaches very near to a tinder-box. 

 Ling, Icel., the heath or heather plant : Ijung I 

 take to be the same word. Gat, Icel. for way or 

 opening ; hence strand-gata, the opening of the 

 strand or creek. Tjam, tiom, Icel., well exem- 

 plified in Malham Tarn in Craven. C. I. R. 



Gotch (Vol. vi., p. 400.). — The gotch cup, de- 

 scribed by W. R., must have been known in Eng- 

 land before the coming of the present royal family, 

 as it is given in Bailey's Dictionary (1730) as a 

 south country word : it is not likely to have become 

 provincial in so short a time, nor its origin, if Ger- 

 man, to have escaped the notice of old ^iKoXoyos. 

 The A.-S. verb geotan seems to have had the sense 

 of to cast metals, as giessen has in German. In 

 Bosworth's Anglo-Saxon Dictionary is leadgota, a 

 plumber. In modern Dutch this is lootgieter. 

 Thus, from geotan is derived iiigot (Germ, einguss), 

 as well as the following words in Halliwell's Dic' 

 tionary : yete, to cast metals {Pr. Parv.) ; helleyetere 

 and hellyatere, a bell-founder (Pr.Parv.); geat, the 

 hole through which melted metal runs into a 

 mould ; and yote, to pour in. Grose has yoted, 

 watered, a west country woi'd. E. G. R. 



Passage in Thomson : " Steaming " (Vol. vii., 

 pp. 87. 248.). — This word, and not streaming, is 

 clearly the true reading (as is remarked by the 

 former correspondents), and is so printed in the 

 editions to which I am able to refer. The object 

 of my Note is to point out a parallel passage in 

 Milton, and to suggest that steaming would there 

 also be the proper reading : 



" Ye mists and exhalations, that now rise, 

 From hill or streaming lake, dusky or gray, 

 Till the sun paint your fleecy skirts with gold. 

 In honour to the world's great Author, rise." 



Paradise Lost, Book v. 



CUTHBERT BeDE, B.A. 



[The reading is steaminy in the 1st edition of Para- 

 dise Lost, 1667. — Ed,] 



The Word ''Party" (Vol. vil., pp. 177. 247.).— 

 The use of this word for a particular person is 

 earlier than Shakspeare's time. It no doubt occurs 

 in most of our earliest writers ; for it is to be found 

 in Herbert's Life of Henry VIII, in his trans- 

 lation of the " Centum Gravamina " presented to 

 Pope Adrian in 1521, the 55th running thus : 

 ^ " That, if one of the marryed couple take a journey 

 either to the warres, or to perform a vow, to a farre 

 countrey, they permit the parti/ remaining at home, if 

 the other stay long away, upon a sumtne of money 



payd, to cohabite with another, not examining suffi- 

 ciently whether the absent party were dead." 



It may also be found in Exodus xxii. 9., where, 

 though it occurs in the plural, it refers to two 

 individuals : 



" For all manner of trespass, whether it be for ox,. 

 for ass, for sheep, for raiment, or for any manner of lost 

 thing, which another challengeth to be his, the cause 

 of both parties shall come before the judges ; and whom 

 the judges shall condemn, he shall pay double unto his 

 neighbour." 



H. T. EliLACOMBE, 



Clyst St. George. 



Curious Fact in Natural Philosophy (Vol. vii., 

 p. 206.). — In reply to Elginensis I send you a 

 quotation from Dr. Golding Bird's Natural Phi- 

 losophy in explanation of this well-known phe- 

 nomenon : 



" One very remarkable phenomenon connected with 

 the escape of a current of air under considerable pres- 

 sure, must not be passed over silently. M. Clement, 

 Desormes {Ann. de Phys, et Chim,, xxxvi. p. 69.) has 

 observed, that when an opening, about an inch in dia- 

 meter, is made in the side of a reservoir of compressed 

 air, the latter rushes out violently ; and if a plate of 

 metal or wood, seven inches in diameter, be pressed 

 towards the opening, it will, after the first repulsive 

 action of the current of air is overcome, be apparently 

 attracted, rapidly oscillating within a short distance of 

 the opening, out of which the air continues to emit 

 with considerable force. This curious circumstance is- 

 explained on the supposition, that the current of air,, 

 on escaping through the opening, expands itself into a 

 thin disc, to escape between the plate of wood or metal, 

 and side of the reservoir ; and on reaching the circum- 

 ference of the plate, draws after it a current of atmo- 

 spheric air from the opposite side. . . . The plate 

 thus balanced between these currents remains near the 

 aperture, and apparently attracted by the current of 

 air to which it is opposed." 



Dr. G. B. then describes the experiment quoted 

 by Elginensis as " a similar phenomenon, and 

 apparently explicable on similar principles.'* 

 (Bird's Nat. Phil., p. 118.) Cokely. 



Lowhell (Vol. vii., p. 272.). — I may add to the 

 explanation of this word given by M. H., that 

 low, derived from the Saxon lozg, is still com- 

 monly used in Scotland for a flame ; hence the 

 derivation of lowbell, for a mode of birdoatching 

 by night, by which the birds, being awakened by 

 the bell, are lured by the light into nets held by 

 the fowlers. In the ballad of St. George for 

 England, we have the following lines : 

 " As timorous larks amazed are 

 With light and with a lowhell." 

 The terra lowbelling may therefore, from the noise,; 

 be fitly applied to the rustic charivari described 

 by H. T. W. (Vol. vii., p. 181.) as practised in 

 Northamptonshire. J- S. C, 



