Feb. 25. 1854.] 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



183 



thanks to him for the truly valuable hints it contains. 

 If Dr. Mansell will give the rationale of the necessity 

 of not allowing a longer time than absolutely required 

 for the soaking out the now injurious iodide of potas- 

 sium, set free by the deposit of the iodide of silver ; 

 and also, an explanation of the cause of that part of the 

 iodized papers which takes the longest time in drying 

 being weaker than that part which had been more 

 hastily dried, the learned Doctor will still be adding to 

 our present amount of obligation to him. 



Henry Hele. 



MejiltaS tn JHtuar d&uztiti. 



Buonaparte's Abdication (Vol. ix., p. 54.). — In 

 an article on this subject, after referring to Wil- 

 kinson's shop on Ludgate Hill, your correspon- 

 dent states that " Wilkinson's shop does not now 

 exist." In justice to ourselves, we trust you will 

 insert this letter, as such a remark may be pre- 

 judicial to us. Having sold our premises on Lud- 

 gate Hill to the Milton Club, we have removed 

 our establishment to No. 8. Old Bond Street, 

 Piccadilly. 



As regards the table spoken of, your informant 

 must be labouring under some strange error. We 

 do not remember ever having, or pretending to 

 have, the original table on which the Emperor 

 Napoleon signed his abdication. Many years ago, 

 a customer of ours lent us a table with some such 

 plate as you describe, which he had had made 

 abroad from the original, for us to copy from ; 

 and after this we made and sold several, but only 

 as copies. We cannot charge our memory with 

 the correctness of the inscription you publish ; and, 

 moreover, we believe the words " a fac-simile," or 

 something to that effect, were engraved as a head- 

 ing to those made by us. 



Chas. Wilkinson & Sons. 



8. Old Bond Street. 



[We willingly give insertion to this disclaimer from 

 so respectable a firm as Messrs. Wilkinson & Sons ; 

 from which it appears that our correspondent A Can- 

 tab has not made " when found, a correct note" of the 

 fac-simile. Another correspondent has favoured us 

 with the following additional notices of the original 

 table : " On Dec. 8, 1838, I saw the table on which 

 Napoleon signed his abdication at the Chateau of 

 Fontainebleau, on which there are two scratches or 

 incisures said to have been made by him with a pen- 

 knife. These injuries upon the surface of the table 

 were so remarkable as to attract my attention, and I 

 inquired about them of the attendant. He said Napo- 

 leon, when excited or irritated, was in the habit of 

 handling and using anything which lay beside him, 

 perhaps to allay mental agitation ; and that he was 

 considered to have so used a penknife, and disfigured 

 the table."] 



Burton Family (Vol. ix., p. 19.). — I know not 

 whether E. H. A. is interested about the Burtons 



of Shropshire. If he is, he will find an interesting 

 account of them in A Commentary on Antoninus 

 his Itinerary, Sfc. of the Roman Empire, so Jar as 

 it concerneth Britain, &c. : London, 1658, p. 136. 



Glericus (D.). 



Drainage by Machinery (Vol. viii., p. 493.). — 

 E. G. R. will perhaps find what he wants on this 

 subject in Walker's 



■ Essay on Draining Land by the Steam Engine ; 

 showing the number of Acres that may be drained by 

 each of Six different-sized Engines, with Prime Cost and 

 Annual Outgoings: London, 1813, 8vo., price 1*. 6d." 



He will find a complete history of the drainage of 

 the English fens in Sir William Dugdale's 



" History of Embanking and Draining of divers Fens 

 and Marshes, both in Foreign Parts and in this King- 

 dom, and of the Improvement thereby : adorned with, 

 sundry Maps, &c. London, 1 662, fol. A New Edi- 

 tion, with three Indices to the principal Matters, 

 Names, and Places, by Charles Nelson Cole, Esq..: 

 London, 1772, fol." 



Mr. Samuel Wells published, in 1830, in 2 vols. 

 8vo., a complete history of the Bedford Level, ac- 

 companied by a map ; and I may add that the late 

 Mr. Grainger, C.E., read a series of papers on the 

 draining of the Haarlem Lake to the Society of 

 Arts in Edinburgh, which, I believe, were never 

 published, but which may, perhaps, be accessible 

 to E. G. R. Henry Stephens. 



Naitochiis and Calchanti (Vol. ix., pp. 36. 84.). 

 — The former of these words being sometimes 

 spelt natthocouks in the same deed, shows the ig- 

 norance or carelessness of the scribe, the reading 

 being clearly corrupt ; I would suggest cottagiis, 

 cottages, and by " g a nis '' I should understand not 

 granis, as F.S.A. supposes, but ga?-dinis, gardens. 

 The line will then run thus : 



" Cum omnibus gardinis et cottagiis adjacentibus." 



It will be seen that this differs from the solution 

 proposed by Mr. Thrupp (p. 84.). 



With respect to the latter word, calchanti, I re- 

 gret that I cannot offer a satisfactory solution. 

 Possibly the word intended may have been cal- 

 canthi, copperas, vitriol, or the water of copper or 

 brass ; but I find in the Index Alter of Ainsworth, 

 the word — 



" Calecantum. A kind of earth like salt, of a bind- 

 ing nature. Puto pro Chalcanthum, Vitriol, L. " 



Will this tally with the circumstances of the case ? 

 I presume that the words liquor, mineral, &c, fol- 

 lowing calchanti in the grant, are contractions for 

 the genitive plural of those words ; the subject of 

 the grant being the tithes of all those substances. 



H. P. 

 Lincoln's Inn. 



