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NOTES AMD QUERIES. [io s. xn. NOV. 20, 1909.
In "An Act for establishing : the mode
and conditions of Surveying and Granting
the vacant Lands within this State," passed
in South Carolina in 1784, it was enacted
" That a commissioner of locations shall be appointed in each circuit court district, who shall take and receive the original entry of all vacant lands." ' S. Carolina Statutes,' iv. 590.
In 1794 it was enacted
" That from and immediately after the passing of this Act, the land office be, and the same shall be, so far closed, for the term of four years, that within that period no one person shall obtain more than one grant for land to be hereafter surveyed." Ditto, v. 234.
The term " land office " was apparently not in use during the colonial period in Con- necticut, Georgia, Massachusetts, New Hamp- shire, New Jersey, New York, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Virginia.
The above facts have been gleaned from a merely cursory glance at the indexes to colonial records, archives, and laws, and a careful examination of the works them- selves would doubtless yield further facts of importance. In the extract from The Massa- chusetts Gazette of 7 March, 1774, quoted in part by MB. THORNTON, it was stated that " the land-offices in North-America will be opened again, and it is said on nearly the former footing." Perhaps MB. THOBNTON can explain exactly what the " former footing " was. So far as I know, the subject has not been investigated.
ALBEBT MATTHEWS.
Boston, U.S.
[We have, on account of the pressure on our space, forwarded to MB. THORNTON several other quotations sent by MR. MATTHEWS.]
" ONE " : " OATS " : THEIB PBONTJNCIA TION (10 S. xii. 288, 374). At the latter reference MB. JAMES PLATT appears to give one the pronunciation wan. This is no how I have heard it pronounced, except in some Northern counties, nor is it in accorc with the ' N.E.D.* Indeed, wan might as it seems to me, have two different sounds neither of which is that of one. Surely one rimes with son. C. C. B.
MB. PLATT says that in Shropshire oat
is pronounced wuts. In North -West Lin
colnshire the form it takes is wots, whots, anc
wuts, though I am afraid the modern schoo
system is waging war upon it, as it does o
many other of our good old forms of speech
Robert Lockwood, my grandfather's farm bailiff, though a very shrewd man as t his work, had never learnt to read, bu strange to say, he had somehow acquirec
ufficient knowledge of land-surveying -to
measure the work of the reapers in harvest
ime. In the account he was accustomed
- o produce on>-the settlement day after
larvest he useid to indicate wheat by a
ery large W, affiad oats by -the same letter
f very small dimensions.
EDWABD PEACOCK. Wickentree Housfe Kirton-in-Lindsey.
- '
LANGUAGE AN^, PHYSIOGNOMY (10 S. xii. 65). I believe tfitere is a connexion between anguage and physiognomy, or, to put it Tom another point of view, either certain ounds insensibly shape the organs of speech, r else certain nations possess vocal organs ifferent in some degree from those of other 'oik, and in consequence differ also in their utterance. ST. SWITHIN mentions the Hebrew nose and mouth. It is true that the Semitic alphabet contains a series of con- onants which are unknown to any other anguage, and which the stranger fails to earn. Similarly, it takes a negro to pro- nounce the singular consonants kp and gb which are found in all the negro languages of the West Coast of Africa, and apparently nowhere else in the world. I have heard -hese sounds from natives. They resemble pw and bw, e.g., Ekpetedo, a place-name, sounds like Epwetedo.
The Spanish " compromise " between v and b is not a very good example, as this sound is common among the Dutch, who can scarcely be accused of " Southern languor." [t is also used by the Hungarians, another 'ar from languid race, whose speech I once leard described (by a humorist) as " drums and damp squibs." JAS. PLATT, Jun.
ALVABY OB ALVEBY, CHBISTIAN NAME (10 S. xii. 309, 397). The name Avray is probably the same as Auray, which is the designation of a small seaport not far from L' Orient, France. Here in 1364 an English division of the Black Prince's forces under John Chandos defeated the French after a sanguinary struggle, the celebrated French leader Du Guesclin being made prisoner. Hence, in the first instance, the name may have been chosen by one of the English warriors present to give to a child, and then have remained in the family, the form first instanced by MB. STAPLETON dating from 1589. In the seventeenth century the variants Alvary and Alvery seem to point to the original name having become confused with the Spanish Alvarez a patronymic of common occurrence in Spain and Portugal.
N. W. HILL. New York.
