Oct. 29. 1853.] 



NOTES AND QUEKIES. 



419 



G.anges. If it be the symbol of life, or rather of 

 a future state after judgment, then the religious 

 tenets and creed of Muttra should be elucidated, 

 examined, and refuted by the advocates of con- 

 version and their itinerant agents. Moore's Hindoo 

 Pantheon (though the author had at Bombay, as 

 a military officer, little opportunity of ascertaining 

 particulars of the doctrine) sufficiently treats, 

 under the head of the " Krishna," the subject so as 

 to explain to the conversionists, that unless this 

 doctrine be openly refuted, the missionaries may 

 in truth be fighting their own shadow. 



The basilica seems to have originally been the 

 architectural plan of the Roman Forum, or court 

 of justice. The Christians may have converted 

 some of these edifices into churches ; otherwise 

 the first churches seem to have been in the form 

 of a long parallelogram, a central nave, and an 

 aisle on each side, the eastern end being rounded, 

 as the station of the bishop or presbyter. The 

 basilica, or cathedral, was probably not intro- 

 duced until the eighth century, or later. 



I have not just now access to the works of Tod 

 and Maurice. The former, I doubt not, is correct 

 in respect to the Temple of Mundore, but I be- 

 lieve the latter is not so in regard to Benares. 

 The trident, like that of Neptune, prevails in the 

 province of Benares ; and when it, in appropriate 

 size, rises in the centre of large tanks, has a very 

 solemn eifect. I, a great many years ago, visited 

 the chief temple of Benares, and do not recollect 

 that the cross was either noticed to me or by me. 

 This, I think, Avas the only occasion of observing 

 the forms of worship. There is no fixed service, 

 no presiding priest, no congregation. The people 

 come and go in succession. I then first saw the 

 bell, which, in size some twenty-five pounds weight, 

 is suspended within the interior. Each person, at 

 some period of his devotion, touched the tongue of 

 the bell as invocation or grace. The same pur- 

 pose is obtained by Hindoos, and particularly the 

 men of the fighting classes, previously to commen- 

 cing a cooked dinner, by winding a large shell, 

 which gives a louder sound than a horn. The 

 native boys however, on hearing it, exclaim in 

 doggrel rhyme, which I translate, 



" The shell is blown, 

 And the devil is flown." 



Fear seems so much the parent of superstition, 

 that I attribute this saying to the women, who, as 

 mothers, have usually a superstitious dread not only 

 of evil spirits, but also of the evil eye of mortals 

 towards their young ones. When, some twenty 

 years ago, I was told by a Kentish countryman 

 that the church bell was tolled to drive away evil 

 spirits from a departing soul, I supposed the man 

 to be profanely jocose ; but since then I have tra- 

 velled much in this country and on the Continent, 

 and have seen enough to satisfy me that super- 



stition prevails comparatively less in Asia than 

 in Europe ; and the pages of " N. & Q." abun- 

 dantly corroborate the opinion. H. N. 



PHOTOGRAPHIC CORRESPONDENCE. 



Stereoscopic Angles. — I am concerned that my 

 definition and solution of stereoscopic angles (a 

 misnomer, for it should be space) in " N. & Q.," 

 with subsequent illustrations, have not satisfied 

 Mr. Shadbolt, as I am thus obliged to once 

 more request room in your pages, and this time 

 for a rather long letter. When I asserted that 

 my method is the only correct one, it behoved me 

 to be prepared to prove it, which I am, and will 

 now do. 



It seems that Mb. Shadbqlt has not a know- 

 ledge of perspective, or, with a little reflection and 

 trifling pains in linear demonstration on paper, he 

 might have convinced himself of the accuracy of 

 my method. It were well, then, to inform Mr. 

 Shadbolt, that in perspective, planes parallel to 

 the plane of delineation (in this case, the glass at 

 back of camera) have no vanishing points ; that 

 planes at right angles to plane of delineation have 

 but one ; and that planes oblique have but one 

 vanishing point, to the right or left, as it may be, 

 of the observer's eye. This premised, let the 

 subject be a wall 300 feet in length, with two 

 abutments of one foot in front and five feet in 

 projection, and each placed five feet from the 

 central point of the wall, which is to have a plinth 

 at its base, and a stone coping at top. On a 

 pedestal four feet high, two feet wide, and six feet 

 long, exactly midway betwixt the abutments, let 

 an ass be placed, a boy astride him, a bag drawn 

 before the boy, who holds up a long stick in line 

 with the ass, &c., that is, facing the observer. 

 The right distance for the observer's place is 450 

 feet. If the cameras be placed two inches and a 

 half apart, on one line parallel to the wall, the 

 stereographs will be in true perspective for the two 

 eyes, that is, all the planes at right angles to the 

 plane of delineation will have two vanishing 

 points, which, being merely two inches and a half 

 apart, will, in the stereoscope, flow easily into one 

 opposite the eye ; whilst the plinth, coping, and 

 all lines parallel to them, will be perfectly hori- 

 zontal ; and the two pictures would create in the 

 mind just such a conception as the same objects 

 would if seen by the eyes naturally. This would 

 be stereoscopic, true to nature, true to art, and, 

 I affirm, correct. 



Now, let the same subject be treated by Profes- 

 sor Wheatstone's method, when the cameras would 

 be eighteen feet apart. Situated thus, if placed 

 on one line, and that parallel to the wall, the 

 extreme end at the right could not be seen by 

 the camera at the left, and vice versa; so that they 



