THE ANGLO-SAXON LANGUAGE. 265 



possible. Charcoal being an imperfect conductor of heat, the 

 ice is thus preserved for a length of time. 



MRS. F. 



Sand, also, is so slow a conductor of heat, that the red-hot 

 halls used at Gibraltar in repelling the attack of the Span- 

 iards, were conveyed from the furnaces to the bastions, in 

 wooden wheelbarrows, having only a layer of sand between 

 them and the balls. 



ESTHER. 



Mamma, what is the derivation of the word charcoal] 



MRS. F. 



It is derived from an Anglo-Saxon verb, which means 

 turned, turned about, or turned backwards and forwards. Thus 

 charcoal is wood turned coal by the fire; churn, a vessel in 

 which the milk is turned about; and charwoman, commonly 

 written chairwoman, is one who does not abide in the house 

 where she works, as a constant attendant, but returns home 

 to her own place of abode, and returns again when required. 

 To set a door or window achar, or as some write it on char, 

 and as we term it ajar, is to put it neither quite open nor 

 quite shut, but on the turn or return to either.* 



ESTHER. 



Thank you, mamma; I should like very much to learn 

 Saxon. 



MRS. F. 



It were much to be desired that the study of Anglo-Saxon 

 formed a branch of education, for it constitutes the basis of 

 our language, of which a greater majority of words are 

 Saxon than would be easily believed. Of the sixty-five 

 words which compose the Lord's Prayer, there are only five 

 that are not Saxon. Of eighty-one words in the soliloquy of 

 Hamlet, thirteen only are of Latin origin. Even in a pas- 

 sage of ninety words of Milton, whose diction is more learned 



* Diversions of Parley. 

 23 



