165 
*‘wharrow,” used to give momentum to the spindle, and maintain its 
rotation after the act of twisting, and casting it from the hand of the 
spinster. In this act the verticillum was often lost, dropped, and, not 
thought worth the trouble of picking up, it was often cast away as 
worthless. 
After a long search, it was at last found that the heraldic descrip- 
tion of the coat of arms of the family of Trefuss, in “ Guillim’s Display 
of Heraldry,” p. 300, supplied the obsclete English name given above 
of the verticillum, and thus completed a series of titles for unmarried 
females, proving that the three instruments used by the spinsters of an- 
tiquity and of the middle ages had suggested English words; as if the 
several implements, the spindle, the distaff, and the wharrow, had been 
considered insignia of those denominations of women who were, or who 
claimed to be, unmarried, or who acted as if they were unmarried; con- 
sequently, it was inferred that the three instruments used by spinners 
formerly might be considered as proper insignia of unmarried women, 
or married women in marital rebellion, but not of married women pro- 
perly so called, who, as wives, were considered by the analogy of lan- 
guage to be weavers, and who continued to act up to those vows of obe- 
dience to the laws of the land and morality to which they promised to 
conform for life when they were married. 
It was explained that the cases quoted in Mr. Akerman’s paper, in 
which it was inferred that the spindle and distaff, taken together, were 
the insignia of wives, or weavers, as well as of spinsters, or spinners, when 
properly investigated, led to a different conclusion, and that the proper 
insignia of the woman considered to be a wife should always imply the 
loom or its productions, a warp or woven fabric, and not a mere thread 
or yarn, or any instrument used for spinning it. 
Bryvon B. Stoney, C.E., M.R. I. A., read a paper— 
ON THE APPLICATION OF SOME NEW FORMULZ TO THE CALCULATION OF 
STRAINS IN BRACED GIRDERS. 
Unt within the last ten years our knowledge respecting the strains in 
the vertical portion or web of flanged girders has been very limited, and 
crude and imperfect views still prevail respecting the duty which this 
portion of a girder has to perform. Various, indeed, have been the 
opinions of so-called practical men on the subject. Some say the web 
keeps the flanges apart; others conceive that it holds them together; 
but comparatively few have perceived that its essential duty is to 
transmit the vertical pressure of the load to the abutments, producing 
in so doing horizontal strains in the flanges, or, if they have acknowledged 
this to be its proper function, they have failed to follow out their rea- 
soning to its legitimate result, viz., that the web sustains strains which 
are essentially characterized by the oblique direction in which they act, 
and which can be practically determined both in direction and amount, 
enabling the engineer to dispose of the material in the most economical 
manner, so that its full capabilities of sustaining strain may be called 
into play. 
R. I, A. PROC.—YOL, VII. 2c 
