310
NOTES AND QUERIES, [ii s. XL APRIL 17, 1915.
J. HILL (11 S. xi. 208, 271). A John Hill,
a copperplate engraver in London, was a
brother-in-law of my grandfather, William
Fowler of Wintertori, Lines, and put him into
the way of copperplate engraving. There
are several letters of Mr. Hill in ' Correspond-
ence of William Fowler,' privately printed,
1907 (a copy at B.M.). From these letters
it appears that about 1800 Mr. Hill was very
busy with engravings of gentlemen's seats,
&c. ; but I am not aware that he engraved
a view of Ramsgate. See the Introduction
to the above volume, p. 5* ; and Table of
Contents, 1797-1800. J. T. F.
Winterton, Lines.
BARBADOS FILTERING STONES (11 S. xi. 229). The description at the above reference corresponds in every detail with the familiar household utensil in common use up to the middle of last century. It was the water- filter used when public water supplies were often of bad or turbid quality, and unfit for drinking or cooking purposes in an unfiltered state. But the prefix " Barbados " is surely a misnomer. These filters were formerly produced here in quantities, and were ex- ported to all parts of the world. Even after they had become obsolete here, some con- tinued to be sent abroad ; the last ship- ment remembered was a consignment sent to the Antipodes in the sixties. The material used in making them is described by Prof. Lebour as
"the thick sandstone, known locally as the Grindstone Sill, or Post, whence the celebrated Newcastle grindstones are cut. It is on the whole a fine-grained, moderately hard, light-yellow stone ; but it is in places porous enough for the manufacture of filter stones, which were for- merly extensively made from it." ' Geology of Northumberland and Durham,' 1889, p. 44.
Thus from the same quarries were produced the filter and the grindstone which, Grey (' Chorographia, a Survey of Newcastle,' 1649) tells us,
" is conveyed into most parts of the world ; according to the proverb ' A Scot, a rat, and a Newcastle grindstone you may find all the world over.' "
The ubiquity of the grindstone was shared with its kindred stone the water - filter, whose presence might be expected in any port in the world. R. OLIVER HESLOP.
Newcastle-upon-Tyne.
Dripstones such as MR. PATTERSON de- scribes are very common in Jamaica, where no house would be properly furnished which wanted one. I think they are imported from Cuba. F. NEWMAN.
These stones generally called " drip-
stones "' very probably were first made in
Barbados (the oldest colony in our West
Indian possessions), but are now, I think r
pretty generally distributed over the other
British West Indies. I have " met " thenx
(a local expression applied to inanimate
objects) in all the various presidencies of
the Leeward Islands. Some of them make-
quite imposing and ornamental adjuncts
to a garden.
Here is what I have said of one that I knew in the old-time garden at Montravers r in the island of Nevis, in a paper on ' The Story of the Bettiscombe Skull ' in the Proceedings of the Dorset Field Club in 1910 r
" Near the centre of the garden stands an old drip-stone, an obelisk in shape,* which formed and in many places does so ttill the sole West Indian filter."
MR. PATTERSON'S description of the one he speaks of as having been in use sixty years ago accords accurately with what may still be met with. In fact, I doubt if they are made at all now ; the necessity for them has gone by. I know many white persons to this day who speak of them in the highest praise, arid prefer to drink water drawn from them to that received in any other form. J. S.. UDAL, F.S.A.
Not long ago I read in Chambers's- Journal an account of a quite modern filter in which stone is used. So far as I. recollect, thin slabs of a rock consisting of the remains of ancient foraminifera do the work. The- extremely small perforations in the shells of the minute sea-animals will allow water to drip through, while keeping back microbes and other impurities. Did not Pasteur, the great French chemist, invent a filter in which water percolates through terra-cotta ?'
F. F. S.
I have a halfpennyjtoken showing on the obverse a filtering stone similar to that described at the above raference. It was issued in 1795 from the "Filtering Stone- Warehouse, Coventry Street, London."
WILLIAM GILBERT. 35, Broad Street Avenue, E.G.
I have seen filters of this description for sale in a shop in Calle Rivadavia (near the- junction with Calle Maipu) in Buenos Ayres, and these found ready buyers during an epidemic which occurred during the earlier months of 1893. The stone came from
- That is to say, the interlaced wooden creeper-
covered frame which enclosed it, and kept the- water refreshingly cool.
