Jan. 13. 1855.] 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



39 



Captain Niles, named therein, either arriving at 

 any port, sailing from anywhere, or even any 

 notice taken of her loss in the list of shipping 

 disasters, from August to December in that year. 

 The " Sea Otter," if there was such a ship, did 

 not belong to the port of London, for a friend of 

 mine has kindly searched the books in the Custom 

 House here, from 1805 to 1811, and no such name 

 of vessel appears : separate books are kept at the 

 Customs here for the various out-ports, so per- 

 haps all hope may not yet be lost to your corre- 

 spondent of finding her out. As no mention is 

 made of such a vessel in Lloyd's List, as far as I 

 can see, I am inclined to think it is a fictitious 

 name,— could it be " Swallow," badly written ? _ I 

 have seen two or three vessels of that name regis- 

 tered. Is the year correct ? J. S. A. 

 Old Broad Street. 



Does a Circle round the Moon foretell had 

 Weather ? (Vol. x., p. 463.). — Among the people 

 of Scotland a " brugh about the moon " has been 

 long considered as betokening a change of weather, 

 usually to wet; and from observation it will in 

 most cases be found to hold true. The hrugh or 

 fog is supposed to be caused by the atmosphere 

 being charged with moisture ; and the longer and 

 deeper the circle the more chance of copious rain. 

 Dr. Jamieson, s. v. , says, " a hazy circle round the 

 disk of the sun or moon, generally considered as a 

 presage of a change of weather, is called a brugh 

 or hrogh." That however, as regards the sun, does 

 not appear to have popularly settled down with the 

 same strength of prognostication. G. N. 



I beg to inform W. W. that, in the opinion of 

 country people, a circle round the moon always 

 portends rain ; and if very large, the fall of rain 

 will be very great. It Is considered an indication 

 of much rain, rather than stormy weather. This 

 was first pointed out to me when I was a child, 

 by a gentleman who was a great observer of these 

 natural signs ; and my own observation since has 

 convinced me of its truth. H. J. 



Wandsworth. 



What is Amontillado Shei'ry ? (Vol. ix., p. 474.). 

 — I do not see that any of your correspondents 

 has given what I believe to be the correct account 

 of this curious wine. The peculiar flavour is 

 caused by a process of fermentation, over which 

 the growers have no control, and for which they 

 cannot account. Sometimes only one or two 

 butts In a vintage will be affected, and in other 

 years none at all. Those which some mysterious 

 influence designs for Amontillado, produce a kind 

 of vegetable weed after having been put in the 

 cask; it is long and stringy, like some of our 

 fresh-water weeds, \)ut with very fine fibres, and 

 y bears a very minute white flower. Immediately 

 after shedding these flowers, the whole plant dies 



away, and never again appears, but it leaves that 

 peculiar flavour. I have had this description po- 

 sitively stated and verified by those who have vi- 

 sited the Spanish wine districts : and in Chambers 

 Edinburgh Journal I remember reading the same ; 

 the exact reference I cannot give, but it was before 

 August, 1852. I have looked over the indices 

 since, and think it must be one of those articles 

 which bears no relation to Its title ; a very bad 

 habit, which prevents an index being of any use. 



Hogshead. 

 Artificial Ice (Vol. x., p. 414.). — I had in- 

 tended myself to have called attention to the mis- 

 apprehension of my Query on this subject. W. J. 

 Bernhard Smith is quite right as to what I alluded 

 to. I understood, however, when making inquiries 

 upon the subject, that the surfiice was smoothed 

 by being rubbed with wet cloths. This was in 

 answer to my question as to whether it would be 

 necessary to roof over any place laid with the com- 

 position. This, joined to Its being then a patent, 

 led me to think no more of it at the time ; but I 

 am now anxious to find out the composition, and 

 therefore beg to renew my Query. What was the 

 substance exhibited under the name of artificial ice 

 for skating on at the Egyptian Hall and Baker- 

 street Bazaar, many years ago ? I. P. O. 



" The Modern Athens" (Vol. x., p. 525.).— The 

 manuscript entry referred to by our Editor, 

 assigns the wrong Christian name to the author of 

 this work. The Modern Athens was written by 

 the late Mr. Robert Mudie, author of The British 

 Naturalist ; Guide to the Observation of Nature ; 

 and of many other popular works on !N"atural 

 History and other subjects. C. Forbes. 



Temple. 



Quotation for Verification (Vol. x., p. 464.). — 



" Son of the morning, whither art^thou gone? 

 Where hast thou hid thy many-spangled head 

 And the majestic menace of thine eyes, 

 Felt from afar ? " 



This passage is from Blair's Grave, lines 134—137; 

 but the last word of the first line is " gone," not 

 " fled," as given by W. Eraser. The poem being 

 in blank verse, a rhyme here would be a fault. 



An Old Bengal Civilian some time since 

 (Vol. v., p. 137.) Informed us, that the phrase 

 " Son of the Morning," in Childe Harold, cant. 2. 

 stanza 3., is an oriental expression for " traveller," 

 in allusion to their early rising to avoid the heat 

 of the sun ; but, however applicable this interpre- 

 tation may be to the passage in Childe Harold, 

 the phrase can hardly, I think, bear this sense In 

 the lines from Blair. Can any of your readers 

 say what it means here ? The context seems to 

 refer it to Alexander the Great. E. L. N". 



