From Quizzism and Its Key. Quirks and Quibbles from Queer Quarters. A Mélange of Questions in Literature, Science, History, Biography, Mythology, Philology, Geography, etc. etc. With Their Answers, by Albert P. Southwick, A. M.; New England Publishing Company, Boston; 1886; pp. 128-151.
Part VI
The following extract is taken from Fryer’s Travels to the East Indies, 1672: —
“At Nerule (near Goa) is made the best arach, or nepa die Goa, with which the English on this coast make that enervating liquor called paunch (which is Indostan for five), from five ingredients, as the physicians name this composition diapente, or from four things, diatesseron.”
One made from the ship of Sir Francis Drake, the Ferry Boy, who was one of the founders of English naval power, the eldest of twelve brothers and the son of a most worthy sailor named Edmund Drake. Francis was born at Tavistock, in Devonshire, in the year 1545. He acquired his greatest fame by driving back and dispersing the ships of the Invincible Armada, which had been fitted out by Philip of Spain, to conquer England. After completing the circumnavigation of the globe, he was knighted by Queen Elizabeth who dined with the celebrated mariner, on board his ship, off Deptford, in the Thames, — at the conclusion of the repast. Even to this day the name of Drake is honored in Plymouth, and spoken with affection, and his memory is drank daily in draughts of crystalline water; for he devoted the savings of his life to the construction of an 129 aqueduct which brings a supply of water from the Tors of Dartmouth to the town. He died at sea, near Portobello, December 27, 1595, and his body was committed to the waters of the great deep, on which so much of his life was spent.
A pig over the door. The middle ages adopted a bush. “Good wine needs no bush,” etc., answering to the gilded grapes at a modern vintner’s. The bush is still a common sign. At Charles I.’s death, a cavalier landlord painted his bush black. Then came the modern square sign, formerly common to all trades.
The term is Scotch, cutty being a work which means little or short. Thus, a little girl is called a cutty; there are cutty pipes and cutty spoons; and the readers of Burns need not be reminded of the scantily-draped lady who is styled cutty-sark.
The African rock goat — the most loathsome creature on earth; the foul tobacco worm; and the rational creature, man! So says Dr. Caldwell.
This is a Spanish phrase, and refers to the notion that real aristocratic families have blue blood in their veins, while the blood of inferior persons approaches more or less to a black hue. Hence the French phrases, sang bleu (aristocratic blood) and sang noir (commoners’ blood).
130Sir Walter Raleigh’s snuff-box, out of which he took a pinch on the scaffold, was in constant use by the Duke of Sussex, and was knocked down at his sale for £6.
William Wotton, D. D. (1666-1726), was admitted at St. Catherine’s Hall before he was ten, and took his B. A. when he was twelve and a half.
Queen Anne, who was very fond of brandy. On the statue of Queen Anne in St. Paul’s church-yard a wit wrote:—
On the site of Dakin’s tea-shop stood a “gin-palace” at that time.
Marshal Ney (1769-1815). So called by the troops of Friedland (1807), on account of his fearless bravery. Napoleon said of him: “That man is a lion.”
Cardinal Mezzofanti (1744-1849), who knew fifty-eight different tongues. Byron (1788-1824) called him “a walking polyglot; a monster of languages; a Briareus of parts of speech.” — Briareus was a giant with fifty heads and a hundred hands. Homer states that the gods called him by this name, but men called him Ægeon. — Iliad, i, 403.
131From the old supposition that it would increase the butter of milk. No doubt those cows give the best milk that pasture in fields where buttercups abound, not because these flowers produce butter, for cows never eat them, but because they grow only on sound, dry, old pastures, which afford the best food.
Camilla, the virgin queen of the Volscians. Virgil writes that she was so swift that she could run over a field of corn without bending a single blade, or make her way over the sea without even wetting her feet: —
Castaly, the river of poetic inspiration, is a fountain of Parnassus sacred to the Muses, and its waters are said to have possessed this power.
S.
that is
Servidor.
S. A. S.
Sus Altezas Sacras.
X. M. Y.
Jesus Maria Isabel.
Xpo. Ferens.
Chriso-pher.
El Almirante.
El Amirante.
In English: “Servant — of their Sacred Highnesses — Jesus, Maria, and Isabella — Christopher — The Admiral.”
Christo-pher means Christ Bearing. His heirs — it was provided in the discoverer’s will — should sign with “an S with an X under it, and an M with a Roman A over it, 132 and over that an S, and a great Y with an S over it, with its lines and points — as is my custom — he shall only write ‘The Admiral,’ whatever title the king may have conferred upon him.” Captain Becher, recalling that it was to Isabella that Columbus owed his success, read the initials as above given.
That two cats fought in a sawpit so ferociously that when the battle was over, only the tail of each was left. This is an allegory of the municipalities of Kilkenny and Irishtown, who contended so stoutly about boundaries and rights, to the end of the seventeenth century, that they mutually impoverished each other — ate up each other, leaving only a tail behind.
It was formerly a trick among country people in England to substitute a cat for a sucking-pig, and bring it in a bag to market. If any greenhorn chose to buy a “pig in a poke” without examination, all very well, but if he opened the sack, “he let the cat out of the bag,” and the trick was disclosed.
When Charles II. fled from the Parliamentary army, he took refuge in Boscobel-house, but when he deemed it no longer safe to remain there, he concealed himself in an oak. Dr. Stukely states that this tree “stood just by a horse-track passing through the wood, and the king, with Colonel 133 Carlos, climbed into it by means of the hen-roost ladder. The family reached them victuals with a nut-hook.” — Itinerarium Curiosum, 1724, iii, p. 57.
* [Elf.Ed. For more about this event, see this episode in history recounted for general readers in the Victorian era, in Harper’s New Monthly Magazine.]
Ignatius Sancho, an African writer, who died in London, aged fifty-one, on December 14, 1780. His Letters possess great originality.
General Greene, who, on the fourteenth of December, 1781, additionally informed Congress that he had been unable to advance on the British for ten days for want of ammunition; that he had not paper with which to make returns, no camp-kettles, etc; that he lay within a few miles of the enemy, and had not six rounds per man.
This village, inhabited by Delawares and Miamis, was attacked by six hundred Americans under Colonel Campbell, on the seventeenth of December, 1812. The town, with several others in the vicinity, was burnt.
Mahomet III., Sultan of Turkey, who died of the plague, December 20, 1603. In beginning his reign, he also ordered ten of his father’s wives to be drowned. He invaded 134 Hungary with an army of two hundred thousand men, but after some successes his progress was checked and he sued in vain for peace.
On the twenty-third of December, 1757, the British privateer Terrible, Captain William Death (who had Devil for his lieutenant, and Ghost for his surgeon), of twenty-six guns and two hundred men, captured a large French ship, after an obstinate battle, in which he lost his brother and sixteen men killed. A few days after, he fell in with the privateer Vengeance, thirty-six guns and three hundred and sixty men, who recaptured the prize, and, having manned her, both ships bore down on the Terrible, whose main was shot away by the first broadside. After a desperate engagement, in which the French captain and his lieutenant were killed, with two thirds of his crew, the Terrible was boarded, when no more than twenty-six persons were found alive, sixteen of whom had lost an arm or a leg, the remaining being badly wounded. The ship, which had been equipped at Execution dock, was so shattered that it could scarcely be kept above water.
Catharine Von Bora, who died December 27, 1552. She was rescued from a nunnery with eight others, by the assistance of the great reformer, whom she survived several years.
Henry Laurens, ambassador from the United States to France, on the last day of the year 1781.
William Gifford, an English poet and reviewer, who rose from a shoemaker’s bench to an editor’s chair, where he acquired fame and fortune. He died December 31, 1826.
The only authority is Captain John Smith, who, in his General History, states: “About the last of August [1619], came in a dutch man of warre that sold us twenty nigars.”
Dionysius, the younger, on being banished a second time from Syracuse, went to Corinth and became a schoolmaster. He is called Dionysius, the tyrant. Hence Lord Byron says of Napoleon: —
In Howell’s proverbs (1659) we find the following: “I have a goose to pluck with you,” used in the same sense; and Chaucer has the phrase “Pull a finch,” but means, thereby, to cheat or filch. Children of distinction among the Greeks and Romans had birds for their amusement, and in their boyish quarrels used to pluck or pull the feathers out of each other’s pets. Tyndarus, in his Captives, alludes to this, but instances it with a lapwing. In hieroglyphics, a crow symbolizes contention, discord, strife.
136It is told of Ancæus II., King of Samos, and son of Neptune and Astypalæa, that he paid particular attention to the cultivation of the vine, and on one occasion was told by a slave, whom he was pressing with hard labor in his vineyard, that he would never taste of its produce. After the vintage had been gathered in, and the wine made, Ancæus, in order to falsify his prediction, was about to raise a cup of the liquor to his lips, deriding, at the same time, the pretended prophet (who, however, merely told him in reply that there were many things between the cup and the lip), when tidings came that a boar had broken into his vineyard. Throwing down the cup, with the untasted liquor, Ancæus rushed forth to meet the animal, and lost his life in the encounter. Hence arose the Greek proverb,* Πολλα μετaξὺ πελεὶ κύλικὸς και χεὶλεος ἄκρον.” “Multa cadunt inter calicem supremaque labra;” (“Many things fall between cup and lips”), which is the Latin translation by Erasmus.
* This Greek aphorism does not admit of a very literal and elegant rendering in English, but its meaning is equivalent to the Latin.
After the death of Smerdis, the Magian, seven princes of Persia agreed that they would ride to the top of a hill in the early morning, and that he should be king whose horse first neighed. At the first glimpse of sunrise, the horse of Darius, the son of Hystaspes, of the royal family, was the first to neigh, and Darius was proclaimed king. This good fortune of Darius arose from the fact principally that his 137 groom had, daily, previous to this memorable morning, taken his master’s horse, before daylight, to the appointed place of meeting.
Hypocritical tears. The tale is, that crocodiles moan and sigh, like a person in deep distress, to allure travellers to the spot, and even shed tears over their prey while in the act of devouring it.
It is said that it was introduced by Patrick M’Alpine, since called St. Patrick, as a simile of the Trinity, 432. Failing to make them (the Irish) understand his words, he showed them a stem of clover or trefoil, thereby exhibiting an ocular demonstration of the possibility of three uniting into one, and one into three.
In England, this term is applied to that of William Pulteney, the earl of Bath, Lord Carlisle, Lord Winchelsea, and Lord Granville, which existed from February 10 to February 12, 1746.
The importation of slaves from Congo and Angola was commenced by the Portuguese in 1481. The slave-trade of England was begun by Sir John Hawkins, before mentioned, a celebrated navigator, who defrayed the expenses of Francis Drake’s education.
138The first instance recorded in Jewish history is that of Samson about 1120 B. C. Saul also killed himself in 1055 B. C. The only instance recorded in early Roman history occurs in the reign of Tarquin I., when the soldiers thinking themselves disgraced by being ordered to make common sewers, destroyed themselves, 606 B. C..
In Mrs. Jameson’s Memoirs of Female Sovereigns, we are told that Mary Queen of Scots, brought over from France a little sycamore-tree, which she planted in the gardens at Holyrood, and from this sprang the groves so abundant in that country. This tree is also known as the Egyptian fig-tree.
It is a river in the Crimea. At this place on August 16, 1855, an attack was made upon the allied army by 50,000 Russians under Prince Gortschakoff, the latter being repulsed with the loss of 3,329 slain, 1,658 wounded, and 600 prisoners. The allies lost about 1,200, of whom 200 were from the Sardinian contingent which fought with great bravery under the command of General La Mamora. The Russian General Read and the Sardinian General Montevecchio were killed. The brunt of the attack (whose object was the relief of Sebastopol) was borne by two French regiments under General D’Herbillon.
A great chief of the Delaware Indians who lies buried near Doylestown, Pennsylvania. He is represented as 139 being the possessor of many virtues, and politicians, about the close of the Revolution, called him St. Tammany, and chose him as the patron saint of the new republic. Tammany societies were formed and Tammany halls were erected by Republicans, and on May-day, the instituted festival of the saint, meetings of the society were held. Heckewelder, the Indian missionary, writes: “On that day, numerous societies of his votaries walked together in procession through the streets of Philadelphia, their hats decorated with bucks’ tails, and proceeded to a handsome rural place out of town which they called the wigwam, where, after a long talk or Indian speech had been delivered, and the calumet of peace and friendship had been duly smoked, they spent the day in festivity and mirth.
It was built by Acilius on the spot (?) where once a woman had fed with her milk her aged father, whom the senate had imprisoned, and excluded from all aliments in commemoration of the fact. The large painting representative of this is well-known to every habitué of the Boston Museum.
Cimon, the son of Miltiades, and Zachary Taylor. General Winfield Scott, on August 20, 1847, gained five victories in a single day while marching to the City of Mexico.
The first regular theatrical company seen in America, came from England, in 1752, landed at York, in Virginia, 140 and, by permission of Governor Dinwiddie, opened a playhouse at Williamsburg, then the capital of the Old Dominion. The first play performed in America, by a regular company, was at that rude theatre, on September 5, 1752. The company next opened a theatre at Annapolis, Maryland, the same year, and there the first regular theatre in America was erected. On the seventeenth of September, 1753, the same company opened a theatre in New York, where Sir Richard Steele’s play of The Conscious Lovers was performed. The manager, Hallam, being solicited to open a theatre in Philadelphia, went there in April, 1754, and began, in a storehouse, with The Fair Penitent. Such was the beginning of theatricals in the United States.
The defendant in a remarkable trial held in England, October 7, 1746, she being accused of marrying with her own sex to the extent of having fourteen wives.
On the twentieth of July, 1620. A general massacre of the Protestants by the Roman Catholics, who revolted against the government, began at Tirano, extended to all the district, and lasted three days. Valteline (Switzerland) is now a part of Austrian Italy.
One important character of the epidermis of plants is the presence of stomata or breathing-pores. These exist abundantly in the stems and leaves. Then, in the leafless tree, the stem performs the office of breathing.
141The Bovista gigantea, a fungus plant, grows in one night from the size of a pea to that of an average watermelon. Its increase of cells per minute has been estimated to be 66,000,000. Other fungi grow surprisingly fast.
The Jackal (canis aureus). Also the Roseate Spoonbill, a representative of the plataleidæ, at the age of four or five is of a beautiful rose color, with carmine wing and tail-coverts, and has a naked head with golden-yellow skin shading into glossy black around the top of the neck. The fur of the mole (chrysochloridæ) shines with rich metallic tints of variable hues.
The dog. Not even in the hottest weather is he ever “bathed in perspiration.” He drinks by lapping, and thus avoids the danger of swallowing large quantities of cold water when the body is overheated.
The river otter (lutra canadensis). Its pastime of sliding in companies into the water, additional to that stated in the query, presents a singular feature of animal life.
The bat. Its eye is small and apparently of little service, and as it flits among bushes and intricate passages when 142 blinded, some zoölogists have been led to the conclusion that it possessed an additional sense.
The bison is an American animal, the buffalo an Old-World animal, and the distinction between it and the bison is its close resemblance to the common ox.
The single-horned rhinoceros. The animal corresponding to the Unicorn of Scripture is thought to be the Arus or wild ox.
It was first called after its discoverer Wolfram, and was given W for its symbol. When the name of the metal was changed to the present appellation, it still retained its original characterization.
The Manatee, or sea cow, of the Florida coast, which feeds upon aquatic plants. Similar to the elephant, it has a short neck, dense bones, and the nostril in the end of the snout. It has no hind limbs, and its fore limbs are flippers, with vestiges of nails on the edges, enabling it to crawl on the shore.
Moulting usually begins soon after the breeding season, although there are besides a second and third partial 143 moulting sometimes. In individual cases, as in that of the swallow, moulting does not take place until near winter, but in migratory birds it occurs so that the bird will have a supply of new feathers in aid to the journey it may wish to make in going to a warmer climate.
Birds are furnished on the rump with two glands, in which a quantity of unctuous matter is constantly secreting. This is occasionally pressed out by the bill and is used in lubricating the feathers. Domestic birds do not have this fluid in so great a supply, owing to artificial coverings in time of rain, and this explains the greatly ruffled appearance of poultry at such times.
The Apteryx (apterygidæ). Its feathers look like fur. For incubation it digs deep holes in the ground, into which it flees when pursued, — which is characteristic of the lowest order of mammals.
Breast-bone of a fowl.
The Kiwi Kiwi (Apteryx), or the bird without wings, is found only in New Zealand. It is extremely fleet of foot, and hard to capture. As it lives in the swamps and hides in the daytime, only coming forth at night, the natives have almost given up the effort to obtain it, and it is only for 144 their chiefs that they ever pursue them. The chiefs alone are permitted to wear cloaks made of its skin, and the owner of a Kiwi cloak is a very proud man.
Reptiles have flat and naked ears without auricles. The principal tribes are Tortoises, Lizards, and Frogs.
The Chelys matamata (chelydidæ), whose flesh is highly prized, is both the type and the grotesque member of this family.
It belongs to the Pachydermata. Its scientific name is Hyrax Syriacus, and it is like the Alpine marmot.
No. The opinion that they do, has been fully refuted by many accurate naturalists, who have taken pains to inquire into the matter.
The Barbel, a member of the cyprinidæ genus of fish, has the four beards or barbules hanging from the mouth, probably to aid it in grubbing with its nose for aquatic larvæ in the soft banks of streams and rivers.
Singing Mice are common mice supposed to have a disease of the throat that makes them utter a noise like a canary. They are not a distinct species.
Cormorants (graculidæ), which are abundant in all parts of the world. They are tamed and used for fishing, by these “barbarians,” by placing a ring at the base of the neck to prevent the bird from swallowing the game.
This name is applied to the common porpoise which frequently comes to the surface of the water to breathe, where it tumbles and frisks about, presenting a grotesque appearance.
The Whippoorwill. Though bearing a strong resemblance to the Night Hawk, it has this peculiar mark of distinction, as the latter does not have bristles in its gape.
They are provided with a lateral membrane attached to the body and the wrists, which they spread when they wish to make a leap. This they can do to the distance of ten or twelve yards. Strictly speaking, they do not fly.
The Petromyzon Americanus or Lamprey eel. Its mouth is simply a circular sucking-cup, armed with numerous teeth. The tongue, working like a piston, produces a vacuum by which the animal adheres to any object. Assisted by the 146 current, it thus drags away quite large stones from the spot it chooses for depositing its spawn.
None, excepting perhaps hybrids. They do not exist naturally.
Potassium sulphide, resulting from the combustion of the powder.
Two lovers whose passion for each other commenced at Paris, 1118, when Héloïse (a canon’s daughter) was under seventeen years of age. Abélard built the convent of the Paraclete, in which he taught what was condemned as heresy, 1122 and 1140, and made Héloïse abbess. After suffering an ignominious injury at the hands of her uncle, he became a monk of the Abbey of St. Denis, and died of grief in 1142, at St. Marcel. Héloïse begged his body, buried it in the Paraclete, and was interred beside him in 1163. The remains of both were carried to the Museum of French Monuments in 1800; and the Museum having been subsequently broken up, they were finally removed to the cemetery of Père la Chaise in 1817. Their works and letters were published in one volume, in 1816. Pope’s imitations of the latter are well known.
* [Elf.Ed. A very famous couple. See much more about them both onsite beginning with this brief biography. The links from there lead to more on both of them.]
It is said that he lived to the age of 105, on twelve ounces of bread and water daily. James, the Hermit, lived to the 147 age of 104, while St. Epiphanius existed on the same frugal diet to the age of 115.
A field said to have been the one bought with the thirty pieces of silver given to Judas Iscariot for betraying Christ, which is still shown to travellers. It is covered with an arched roof, and retains the name Aceldama, that is, “the field of blood,” to this day. — Matt. xxvii. 8; Acts, i. 19. The name was also given to an estate purchased by Judge Jeffreys, after the “Bloody Assizes,” in 1685.
To prevent the irruptions of the Scots and Picts into the northern counties of England, then under the Roman government. The wall extended from the Tyne to Solway Firth, was eighty miles long, twelve feet high, and eight feet in thickness. Built in 121, it was named after its second founder, the Emperor Adrian; it was repaired by Severus in the year 208.
The Asiatic, Scythian, and African. They are said to have been the descendants of Scythians inhabiting Cappadocia, where their husbands, having made incursions, were all slain, being surprised in ambuscades by their enemies. Their widows having resolved to form a female State, established themselves and decreed that matrimony was a shameful servitude. Herodotus states they were conquered by Theseus about 1231 B. C. As they were constantly employed in wars, they had their right breasts burned off (whence their name from the Greek, a, no, and mazos, breast), that they might throw the javelin with more 148 force. Others derive their name from maza, the moon, which orb they are supposed to have worshiped. About 330 B. C., their queen, Thalestris, visited Alexander the Great, while he was pursuing his conquests in Asia; three hundred females were in her train.
Minutia, who was burned alive, 337 B. C.; Sextalia, 274 B. C., and Cornelia Maximiliana, A. D. 92. The vestals were priestesses of Vesta, who took care of the perpetual fire consecrated to her worship. The mother of Romulus was a vestal. Numa, in 710 B. C., appointed four, and Tarquin added two. After the expulsion of the Tarquins, the high-priest was intrusted with the care of them.
It is made of gold, having inside a ring of iron, said to have been forged from the nails of Christ’s cross, and was made by order of Theudelinde for her husband, Agilulf, king of the Longobards, 591. She gave it to the church of Monza. Charlemagne was crowned with this crown, and after him all the emperors who were kings of Lombardy. Napoleon I. at Milan, on May 26, 1805, put it on his head, saying, “Dieu me l’a donnée; gare à qui y touchera” (“God has given it to me; woe to him who shall touch it”). He founded the order of the Iron Crown, which still exists. The crown was removed from Monza to Mantua, by the Austrians, on April 23, 1859.
It was made independent by Charlemagne about the year 778, certain rights being reserved to the Bishop of Urgel. The feudal sovereignty, which long appertained to the 149 Counts of Foix, reverted to the French king, Henry IV., in 1589, but was given up in 1790. On March 27, 1806, an imperial decree restored the old relations between Andorra and France. The republic is now governed by a council elected for life; but the magistrates are appointed alternately by the French government and the Spanish Bishop of Urgel. This small republic in the Pyrenees, bearing the title of “The Valleys and Sovereignties of Andorra,” has a population of about twenty thousand.
Anagrams are formed by the transposition of the letters of a name or sentence; as army from Mary, etc. To the question put by Pilate to the Saviour: “Quid est veritas?” (“What is truth?”) is the answer in the remarkable anagram, “Est vir qui adest” (“The man who is here”). From “Horatio Nelson” is derived “Honor est a Nilo” (“There is Honor from the Nile”). These transpositions are said to have been made by ancient Jews, Greeks, and other nations; the French introduced the art, as now practised, about the year 1560, in the reign of Charles IX.
Mount Ararat is venerated by the Armenians from a belief of its being the place on which Noah’s ark rested after the universal deluge, 2348 B. C. But Apamea, in Phrygia, claims to be the spot; and medals have been struck there with a chest on the waters, and the letters N O E, and two doves; this place is three hundred miles west of Ararat. The ark was three hundred cubits in length, fifty in breadth, and thirty in height; but most interpreters suppose this cubit to be about a foot and a half and not the geometrical one of six.
150Attila; who was distinguished for his conquests and crimes, having ravaged the Eastern Empire from 445 to 450, when he made peace with Theodosius. He invaded the Western Empire, 450, and was defeated by Ætius at Châlons, 451; retiring into Pannonia, he died, through the bursting of a blood-vessel, on the night of his nuptials with a beautiful virgin named Ildico, in the year 453.
It is a Maltese cross made of Russian cannon from Sebastopol, a representative of the royal order of merit instituted to reward the gallantry of persons of all ranks in the army and navy, on February 5, 1856.
On December 4, 1670, Blood, a discarded officer of Oliver Cromwell’s household, with his confederates, seized the Duke of Ormond in his coach, and had taken him to Tyburn, intending to hang him, when his friends rescued him. Blood, afterward, in the disguise of a clergyman, attempted to steal the regal crown from the jewel-office in the Tower, May 9, 1671. For this and other offences, he was not only pardoned, but had a pension of £500 per annum granted to him by Charles II. in 1671. He died in 1680, while confined in prison for a libel on the Duke of Buckingham.
A people who fled to England from the persecution of the cruel Duke of Alva, the governor of the Low Counties for Philip II. of Spain, in 1566, where a church was given to 151 them by Queen Elizabeth. The first permanent settlements in New York were made by Walloons (the descendants of French Protestants who had fled to Holland). Thirty-five families arrived in 1623. Eight families went up the Hudson, and settled at Albany; the remainder crossed the East River, and settled upon lands now covered by the eastern portion of Brooklyn, around the navy-yard. There was born Sarah Rapelye, the first white child born within the limits of New York State.
An ancient gold coin, weighing four pennyweights, and valued at 6s. 8d. in the reign of Henry VI., and at 10s. in the reign of Elizabeth, 1562. The angelot, a gold coin, value half an angel, was struck at Paris when held by the English in 1431.
A rare metal. The earth yttria was discovered by Professor Gadolin in a mineral at Ytterby, in Sweden, 1794. The metal, which was first obtained by Wöhler in 1828, is of a dark gray color and very brittle.
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