NOTES — ORIGINAL AND SELECTED. 303 



ANTHROPOLOGY. 



Supplementary Note on Ancient Water-pipes.^— As 

 a further piece of negative evidence in support of the compara- 

 tively late introduction of wooden water-pipes in England, I 

 submit the following item from Lelands Itinerary (c. 1540) : — 



" Mr. Gostewik beyng borne in Willingtoun boute this Lordeship of the Duke 

 •oi North folk now lyving, and hath made a sumptuus new Building of Brike and 

 Tymbre a fundamentis in \i, with a conduct of water derivid in Leade Pipes." 

 \l.ehmd's Itinerary 1745, Edn., i., 112.) 

 A. MORLEY DaVIES, 



Proposed Dam across the Lea Valley. — In the Times of 

 September 15th is reprinted a passage from the issue of 

 September 15th, 1803, of a project which recalls Alfred's opera- 

 tions against the Danes. Amongst the preparations, in dread of 

 French Invasion, was the following : — 



" For the further security of the metropohs, a measure (which was some time 

 since mentioned as intended) is now adopted, and even begun to be put in 

 ■execution, which will effectually protect it, on the eastern side, for an extent of 

 nearly twenty miles. A- dam is to be constructed on the Lea River, which will 

 enable Government, on the shortest notice of the landing of the enemy, to over- 

 flow the whole valley from near Ware to the Thames. The Surveyors were 

 employed upon the business on Tuesday last, and the workmen are expected 

 immediately to commence their operations." 



This work was probably never actually begun. As other outcomes 

 of the invasion scare, the Martello Towers were built round the 

 coast at a prodigious cost, and then abandoned ! 



Sacred Fire. — The paragraph in the Standard for 

 April 4th, 1904, is an interesting record of a survival. It 

 illustrates the familiar quotation from Schiller : — 



" Time doth consecrate, 

 And what is grey with age becomes religion." 



*' Fire and water were blessed with full ritual at the Westminster Cathedral 

 on Saturday, in the presence of a large congregation. Outside the Cathedral lire 

 was struck from a flint, and charcoal was lighted with it. Then Father Brown, 

 as celebrant, blessed the new fire at the entrance to the church with five grains of 

 incense, which were afterwards put into the Paschal candle. All the lights in the 

 church were put out, to be relighted from the blessed fire. Following this 

 ■ceremony was the blessing of the font, Monsignor Moyes reciting the prayer, 

 "Oh God, whose spirit in the very beginning of the world moved over 

 the waters," divided the water in the form of a cross, and flung some of it to the 

 four quarters of the compass. Then, breathing thrice upon the water, he as many 

 times lowered the Paschal candle into it. The ceremony concluded with the 

 baptism of a new-born babe. Afterwards the bells, which had been silent since 

 Maundy Thursday, were rung at the Gloria in excehis^ 



I See Essex Nat., xiii., 117-118. 



