a-d S. VI. 133., July 17. '58.] 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



53 



cahndario Giegoriano sia stato ricevuto in c'lelo, ancor che 

 in terra alcuni paesi abbiano ricusato di seguitarlo. 



" Lo stesso narrarsi esser accaduto nel boUimento di 

 sangue di S. Gennaro a' 19 Settembre, e Panzirolo, in 

 liriiDVa della verila dell' emendazione Gregoriana rap- 

 porta nel Cap. 177 de Clar. Leg. interp. una istorietta die 

 merita esser trascritta colle sue stesse parole : ' Ha^c anni 

 cniendatio divinitus est comprobata; quoddamenim nucis 

 genus reperitur, quod tola hyenie usque ad nocfem Jo- 

 annis Baptists: foliis ac fructibus velut arrida caret; mane 

 iiltro ejus diei, more aliarum foliis fructibusqne induta 

 reperitur. Hac post ejus anni correctionem, decern diebus 

 priusquam antea consueverit, id est eadem nocte divi 

 Joannis quiB retrocessit, et non ut antea virescere csepit.'" 

 — Istoria Civile del Regno di Napoli, lib. xxxiv. c. 3. vii. 

 301. Italia. 1821. 



This, or some sucli passa;^e, may have misled 

 the author of the Almanack de Touraine into the 

 notion that Cave believed the miracle. I do not 

 know whether his Lives of the Martyrs had been 

 translated, nor whether Gianone understood Eng- 

 lish. Most likely he cited at second-hand ; lor 

 he was too honest to misrepresent wilfully. Cave 

 tells the miracle in a sceptical manner, and ob- 

 serves : — 



"But the miracle of the miracles lay in this, that when 

 Pope Gregory XIII. reformed the Roman Calendar, and 

 made no less than ten days ditference from the former, 

 the blood in the vial ceased to bubble on the 3d of August 

 according to the old computation, and bubbled on that 

 which fell according to the new reformation, — a great 

 justification, I confess, as Baronius well observes, of the 

 authority of the Gregorian Calendar, and of the Pope's 

 constitutions ; but yet it was ill done to set the Calendars 

 at variance when both had been equally justified by the 

 miracle. But how easy it was to abuse the word [world?] 

 with such tricks, especially in these latter ages, when the 

 artifice of the priests was arrived to a kind of perfection 

 in these affairs is no difficult matter to imagine." — Apos- 

 tolic, or Lives of the Primitive Fathers for the Three First 

 Centuries. By W. Cave, D.D. p. 18. 'Lond. 1682. 



I cannot find any testimony as to the Glaston- 

 bury Thorn. The subject is curious, and I hope 

 some correspondent will be able to carry it further. 



H. B. C. 



U. U. Club. 



DEAFNESS AT WILL. 

 (2°'> S. V. 358.) 



The evils so justly complained of by your cor- 

 respondent might be remedied by constructing the 

 outer walls of our dwelling-houses with hollow 

 bricks, which are known to be non-conductors of 

 sound. The reason of this is, that the hollow 

 |)ortion being filled with rarefied air, every sound 

 which finds its way into such a mass is effectually 

 buried there, and cannot penetrate to the outer 

 surface. If the space between the two surfaces 

 of the partition walls, and that between the ceil- 

 ing of one room and the floor of another, were 

 filled with brown paper gummed over with flock 

 or sawdust, it would aid materially to deaden the 

 sound. Or if the spaces were filled with shavings. 



tow, or cut straw, it would probably have the 

 same effect. All these substances are bad con- 

 ductors of sound, because they shut up a lart^e 

 quantity of air between their minute and detached 

 parts, so that they cannot readily transmit an im- 

 pulse. The sound is thus entangled, as it were, 

 and, being no longer able to preserve its reizular 

 outline, becomes deadened, if not altogether lost. 



The Kev. Dr. Brewer, from whose charming 

 little volume on Sound and its Phenomena (Long- 

 mans, 1854,) I gather my knowledge of these 

 matters, has the following sensible paragraph : — 



" It is truly surprising that no ingenious mechanic has 

 yet contrived a substance for partition-walls, where cheap- 

 ness and lightness are especially considered. Nothing, 

 for example, could be easier than to make panels with 

 two sheets of common pasteboard, ortarpauling separated 

 from each other b}' wooden blocks. Sawdust should be 

 thickly strewed over the inner surfaces, and the inter- 

 vening space be well filled with coarse tow or cut straw. 

 A wooden ' upright,' the thickness of the blocks, would 

 hold the panels in their place, especially if the edges were 

 made to lap over the supporters. Such a partition-wall 

 would be a real boon in hotels, &c., where chambers are 

 often separated by half-inch wood, or by simple canvass." 



I have somewhere read, that if the walls of 

 rooms were covered with a solution of giilta percha, 

 before papering, it would effectually deaden all 

 sounds from the adjoining chambers. Or, I be- 

 lieve, a substitute for this is the giitta percha 

 paper, so extensively used of late years in cover- 

 ing damp walls. Edward F. Bimbault. 



MOWBRAY FAMILY. 



(2-"' S. v. 436.) 



In answer to your correspondent's inquiry, I 

 believe there is no doubt that Geoffrey, the war- 

 rior bishop of Coutances, was a member, and bore 

 (previous to his consecration) the name of the 

 family of Montbrny, or (as it was afterwards 

 called in England) Moxb7-uy. Lecanu (Histoire 

 des Eveques de Coutances) speaks of him (p. 119.) 

 as "issu de I'illustre famille de Montbray, natif de 

 la paroisse de Montbray." And in a subsequent 

 page (132.) he says, in a note, — 



" La famille de 3fontbray, qui a subsiste' en Angleterre 

 et en Nonnandie, plusieurs sifecles encore apres notre 

 eveque, portait pour armes de gueules un lion d'argent: 

 mais nous n'oserions affirmerque ces armes aient ete cclles 

 do Geoffroi, car alors les armes etaient personelles." 



On the death of the Bishop his possessions (as 

 your correspondent correctly states) passed into 

 the hands of his nephew Robert de Mowbray, who 

 being taken in arms against William Kufus was 

 detained in prison a great number of years. Ulti- 

 mately he died without issue, and with him ended 

 the direct line of the Moiubrays in England. 



Another Norman Baron, Roger de Alhiiii, had 

 married a Mowbray, a sister (if I mistake not) of 



