of that year.
During the years 1836, 1837, and 1838, there were made at Birmingham or the
neighbourhood, and exported from Liverpool to the river Bonney in Africa,
large quantities of _cast-iron_ rings, in imitation of the _copper_ rings
known as "Manillas" or "African ring-money," then made at Bristol. A vessel
from Liverpool, carrying out a considerable quantity of these cast-iron
rings, was wrecked on the coast of Ireland in the summer of 1836. A few of
them having fallen into the hands of Sir William Betham, he was led to
write the _Essays_ before mentioned. The making of these cast-iron rings
has been discontinued since the year 1838, in consequence of the natives of
Africa refusing to give anything in exchange for them. From inquiry which I
made in Birmingham in the year 1839, I learnt that more than 250 tons of
these cast-iron rings had been made in that town and neighbourhood in the
year 1838, for the African market. The captain of a vessel trading to
Africa informed me in the same year that the Black Despot, who then ruled
on the banks of the river Bonney, had threatened to mutilate, in a way
which I will not describe, any one who should be detected in landing these
counterfeit rings within his territories.

N. W. S.

{279}

_The Use of the Hour-glass in Pulpits_ (Vol. vii., p. 589.; Vol. viii., p.
82.).--Your correspondent A. W. S. having called attention to the use of
the hour-glass in pulpits (Vol. vii., p. 589.), I beg to mention two
instances in which I have seen the stands which formerly held them. The
first is at Pilton Church, near Barnstaple, Devon, where it still (at least
very lately it did) remain fixed to the pulpit; the other instance is at
Tawstock Church (called, from its numerous and splendid monuments, the
Westminster Abbey of North Devon), but here it has been displaced, and I
saw it lying among fragments of old armour, banners, &c., in a room above
the vestry. They were similar in form, each representing a man's arm, cut
out of sheet iron and gilded, the hand holding the stand; turning on a
hinge at the shoulder it lay flat on the panels of the pulpit when not in
use. When extended it would project about a yard.

BALLIOLENSIS.

George Poulson, Esq., in his _History and Antiquities of the Seignory of
Holderness_ (vol. ii. p. 419.), describing Keyingham Church, says that--

"The pulpit is placed on the south-east corner; beside it is an iron
frame-work, used to contain an hour-g