especting their use. For
instance, the Fifteenth Canon orders that on Wednesdays and Fridays weekly,
warning shall be given to the people that litany will be said, by _tolling
of a bell_. And, on the other hand, though we toll at a funeral, the
Sixty-seventh Canon enjoins that--

"After the party's death, there shall be rung no {239} more but one
short peal, and one other before the burial, and one other after the
burial.

The peal here alluded to does not of course mean what MR. ELLACOMBE has so
clearly described to be a modern peal, in Vol. i., p. 154., of "NOTES AND
QUERIES;" but it would at least amount, I suppose, to _consonantia
campanarum_, a ringing together of bells, as distinguished from the _toll_
or single stroke on a bell. Horne Tooke says:

"The toll of a bell is its being _lifted up_ (_tollere_, to raise),
which causes that sound we call its toll."

The poet does not clear the ambiguity and confusion of terms, when he
sings--

"Faintly as _tolls_ the evening _chime_!"

Peals are not heard in London on Sunday mornings, I believe; but in the
country, at least hereabouts, they are commonly rung as the summons to
church, ending with a few strokes on one bell; and then a smaller bell than
any in the peal (the _sanctus_ bell of old, perhaps, and now sometimes
vulgarly called "Tom Tinkler") announces that divine service is about to
begin.

The object of these remarks is to elicit clearly what is the right way of
ringing the bells of a church on the several occasions of their being used.

ALFRED GATTY.

Ecclesfield.

* * * * *

MAZER WOOD: GUTTA PERCHA.

In the _Musaeum Tradescantianum, or a Collection of Rarities preserved at
South Lambeth, near London_, by John Tradescant, 1656, I find, amongst
"other variety of rarities," "the plyable Mazer wood, which, being warmed
in water, will work to any form;" and a little farther on, in the list of
"utensils and household stuffe," I also find "Mazer dishes." In my opinion,
it is more than a coincidence that Doctor Montgomery, who, in 1843,
received the gold medal of the Society of Arts for bringing gutta percha
and its useful properties under the notice of that body, describes it in
almost the same words that Tradescant uses when speaking of the pliable
Mazer wood: the Doctor says, "it could be moulded into any form by merely
dipping it into boiling water." It is worthy of remark that Tradescant, who
wa