ighbour, Dr. Kerrison, that glass might be
rendered less fragile by being mixed in the casting with some chemical
compound of lead,--much as now has come out in the patent toughened
glass. Also we initiated mild experiments about an imitation of volcanic
forces in melting pounded stone into moulds,--as recently done by Mr.
Lindsay Bucknall with slag:--but unluckily we found that the manufacture
of basalt was beyond our small furnace power: I fancied that apparently
carved pinnacles and gurgoyles might be cast in stone; and though beyond
Dr. Kerrison and myself, perhaps it may still be done by the hot-blast
melting up crushed granite.

* * * * *

Among these small matters of an author's natural inventiveness, I will
preserve here a few of the literary class: _e.g._, (1.) I claim to have
discovered the etymology of Punch, which Mark Antony Lower in his
Patronymica says is "a name the origin of which is in total obscurity."
Now, I found it out thus,--when at Haverfordwest in 1858 I saw over the
mantel of the hostelry, perhaps there still, a map of the Roman
earthwork called locally Punch Castle; and considering how that the
neighbouring hills are named Precelly (Procella, storm) as often drawing
down the rain-clouds,--that Caer Leon is Castrum Legionis, and that
there is a Roman bridge over the little river there still styled Ultra
Pontem--I decided at once that Pontii Castellum was the true name for
Punch Castle. Of course, Pontius Pilate and Judas appear in the mediaeval
puppet-plays as Punch and Judy,--while Toby refers to Tobit's dog, in a
happy confusion of names and dates. The Pontius of the Castle was Prater
of the Second Legion. (2.) Similarly, I found out the origin of "Humpty
Dumpty sat on a wall," &c., to refer to the death of William the
Conqueror (_L'homme qui dompte_), who was ruptured in leaping a burnt
wall at Rouen; being very stout,--"he had a great fall," and burst
asunder like Iscariot, while "all the king's horses and all the king's
men couldn't set Humpty Dumpty up again." We must remember that the wise
Fools of those days dared not call magnates by their real names,--nor
utter facts openly: so accordingly (3) they turned Edward Longshanks
into "Daddy Longlegs,"--and (4) sang about King John's raid upon the
monks, and the consequent famine to the poor, in "Four and twenty
blackbirds baked in a pie," &c.,--the key to this interpretation being
"a dainty dish to set before