Feb. 4. 1854.] 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



Ill 



Adulteration of Nitrate of Silver. — Will any of your 

 chemical readers tell me how I am to know if nitrate 

 of silver is pure, and how to detect the adulteration? 

 Jf so with nitrate of potash, how ? One writer on 

 photography recommends the fused, as then the excess 

 of nitric acid is got rid of. Another says the fused 

 nitrate is nearly always adulterated. I fear you have 

 more querists than respondents. I have looked care- 

 fully for a reply to some former Queries respecting 

 Mr. Crookes's restoration of old collodion, but at 

 present they have failed in appearance. 



The Reader of Photographic Works. 



3&*$>ltoS to fflinav <&uttitsi. 



Passage of Cicero (Vol. viii., p. 640.). — Is the 

 following what Semi-Tone wants ? 



" Mira est enim queedam natura vocis ; cujus qui- 

 dem, e tribus omnino sonis, inflexo, acuto, gravi, tanta sit, 

 et tarn suavis varietas perfecta in cantibus." — Orator, 

 cap. 17. 



B. H. C. 



Major Andre (Vol. viii., pp. 174.604.). — The late 

 Mrs. Mills of Norwich (jiee Andre) was not the 

 sister of Major Andre ; she was the only daughter 

 of Mr. John Andre of Offenbach, near Frankfort 

 on the Maine, in Germany ; where he established 

 more than eighty years ago a prosperous concern 

 as a printer of music, and was moreover an emi- 

 nent composer : this establishment is now in the 

 hands of his grandson. Mr. John Andre was not 

 the brother of the Major, but a second or third 

 cousin. Mrs. Mills used to say, that she remem- 

 bered seeing the Major at her father's house as a 

 visitor, when she was a very small child. He 

 began his career in London in the commercial 

 line ; and, after he entered the army, was sent 

 by the English ministry to Hesse-Cassel to con- 

 duct to America a corps of Hessian hirelings to 

 dragoon the revolted Americans into obedience : 

 it was on this occasion that he paid the above- 

 mentioned visit to Offenbach. 



Having frequently read the portion of English 

 history containing the narrative of the trans- 

 actions in which' Major Andre was so actively 

 engaged, and for which he suffered, I have often 

 asked myself whether he was altogether blameless 

 in that questionable affair. Trivet Allcock. 



Norwich. 



P.S. — This account was furnished to me by 

 Mr. E. Mills, husband of the late Mrs. Mills. 



Catholic Bible Society (Vol. ix., p. 41.). — Be- 

 sides the account of this society in Bishop Milner's 

 Supplementary Memoirs of the English Catholics, 

 many papers on the same will be found in the 

 volumes of the Orthodox Journal from 1813, when 

 the Society was formed, to 1819. In this last 

 volume, p. 9., Bishop Milner wrote a long letter, 



containing a comparison of the brief notes in the 

 stereotyped edition of the above Society with the 

 notes of Bishop Challoner, from whose hands he 

 mentions having received a copy of his latest edi- 

 tion of both Testaments in 1777. It should be 

 mentioned that most of the papers in the Orthodox 

 Journal alluded to were written by Bishop Milner 

 under various signatures, which the present writer, 

 with all who knew him well, could always recog- 

 nise. That eminent prelate thus sums up the fate 

 of the sole publication of the so-called Catholic 

 Bible Society : 



" Its stereotype Testament was proved to 



abound in gross errors ; hardly a copy of it could be 

 sold ; and, in the end, the plates for continuing it have 

 been of late presented by an illustrious personage, into 

 whose hands they fell, to one of our prelates [this was 

 Bishop Collingridge], who will immediately employ 

 the cart-load of them for a good purpose, as they were 

 intended to be, by disposing of them to some pewterer, 

 who will convert them into numerous useful culinary 

 implements, gas-pipes, and other pipes." 



Cassiterides (Vol. ix., p. 64.).— Kassiteros; the 

 ancient Indian Sanscrit word Kastira. Of the dis- 

 puted passage in Herodotus respecting the Cas- 

 siterides, the interpretation* of Kennell, in his 

 Geographical System of Herodotus ; of Maurice, 

 in his Indian Antiquities, vol. vi. ; and of Heeren, in 

 his Historical Researches ; is much more satisfac- 

 tory than that offered by your correspondent 

 S. G. C, although supported by the French acade- 

 micians {Inscript. xxxvi. 66.) 



The advocates for a Celtic origin of the name 

 of these islands are perhaps not aware that — 

 " Through the intercourse which the Phoenicians, by 

 means of their factories in the Persian Gulph, main- 

 tained with the east coast of India, the Sanscrit word 

 Kastira, expressing a most useful product of farther 

 India, and still existing among the old Aramaic idioms 

 in the Arabian word Kasdir, became known to the 

 Greeks even before Albion and the British Cassiterides 

 had been visited." — See Humboldt's Cosmos, "Prin- 

 cipal Epochs in the History of the Physical Contem- 

 plation of the Universe," notes. 



Bibeiothecar. Chetham. 



Wooden Tombs and Effigies (Vol. ix., p. 62.).— 

 There are two fine recumbent figures of a Lord 

 Neville and his wife in Brancepeth Church, four 

 miles south-west of Durham. They are carved in 

 wood. A view of them is given in Billing's An- 

 tiquities of Durham,. 3. H. B. 



Tailless Cats (Vol. ix., p. 10.). — In my visits 

 to the Isle of Man, I have frequently met with 



* His want of information in this matter can only 

 be referred to the jealousy of the Phoenicians depriving 

 the Greeks, as afterwards the Romans, of ocular ob- 

 servation. 



