_Emerald_ (No. 14. p. 217.).--Before we puzzle ourselves with the meaning of a thing, it is well to consider whether the authority _may_ not be very loose and inaccurate. This _emerald cross_, even if it was made of emeralds, might have been in several pieces. But we are told generally, in Phillips's _Mineralogy_, that "the large emeralds spoken of by various writers, such as that in the Abbey of Richenau, of the weight of 28 lbs., and which formerly belonged to Charlemagne, are believed to be either green fluor, or prase. The most magnificent specimen of genuine emeralds was presented to the Church of Loretto by one of the Spanish kings. It consists of a mass of white quartz, thickly implanted with emeralds, more than an inch in diameter."
The note to the above exemplifies what I have just said. It is called _emerald_, he says, because it is _green_, from the Greek. I might make a query of this; but it is clearly a mistake of some half-learned or ill-understood informant. The name has nothing to do with green. _Emerald_, in Italian _smeraldo_, is, I dare say, from the Greek _smaragdus_. It is derived, according to the Oxford _Lexicon_, from [Greek: mairo], to shine, whence [Greek: marmarugae]. In looking for this, I find another Greek word, _smirix_, which is the origin of _emery_, having the same meaning. It is derived from [Greek: smao], to rub, or make bright. I cannot help suspecting that the two radical verbs are connected.
_Ancient Motto--Barnacles_.--In reference to your querist in No. 6., respecting the motto which "some Pope or Emperor caused to be engraven in the centre of his table," and the correspondent in No. 7. who replies to him by a quotation from Horace, I beg to observe that honest Thomas Fuller, in _The Holy State_, 275. ed. Lond. 1648, tells us, that St. Augustine "had this distich written on his table:--
"Quisquis amat dictis absentem rodere famam, Hanc mensam indignam noverit esse sibi. * * * * * He that doth love on absent friends to jeere, May hence depart, no room is for him here."
With respect to the Barnacle fowl, it may be an addendum, not uninteresting to your correspondent "W.B. MacCabe," to add to his extract from Giraldus another from Hector Boece, _History of Scotland_, "imprentit be Thomas Davidson, prenter to the Kyngis nobyll grace [James VI.]." He observes, that the opinion of some, that the "Claik geis growis on treis be the nebbis, is vane," and says he "maid na lytyll lauboure and deligence to serche the treuthe and virite yairof," having "salit throw the seis quhare thir Clakis ar bred," and assures us, that although they were produced in "mony syndry wayis, thay ar bred ay allanerly be nature of the seis." These fowls, he continues, are formed from worms which are found in wood that has been long immersed in salt water, and he avers that their transformation was "notably provyn in the zier of God 1480 besyde the castell of Petslego, in the sycht of mony pepyll," by a tree which was cast ashore, in which the creatures were seen, partly formed, and some with head, feet, and wings; "bot thay had na faderis." Some years afterwards, a tree was thrown on the beach near Dundee, with the same appearances, and a ship broken up at Leith exhibited the same marvel; but he clinches the argument by a "notable example schawin afore our eyne. Maister Alexander Galloway Person, of Kynkèll, was with us in thir Illis (the Hebridæ), and be adventure liftet up ane see tangle, hyng and full of mussil schellis," one of which he opened, "bot than he was mair astonist than afore, for he saw na fische in it bot ane perfit schapin foule. This clerk, knawin us richt desirous of sic uncouth thingis, came haistely, and opinit it iwith all circumstance afore rehersit." So far the venerable "Chanon of Aberdene." The West Highlanders still believe in the barnacle origin of this species of fowl.