Perhaps some one of your Lancashire correspondents may be acquainted with the sources of the learned historian's information. If so, it would much oblige your correspondent to be directed to them, as also to any of the Lancashire genealogical authorities referring to the district of Lonsdale South of the Sands.
_Rotation of the Earth._--Has the experiment which about two years ago was much talked of, for demonstrating the rotation of the earth by means of a pendulum, been satisfactorily carried out and proved? And if so, where is the best place for finding an account of it? The diagram by Mr. Little in the _Illustrated London News_ does not seem to explain the matter very fully.
_Nelson and Wellington._--The following statement has been going the round of the American newspapers since the death of the Duke of Wellington. Is it true?--"Lord Nelson was the eighteenth in descent from King Edward I., and { 331} the Duke of Wellington was descended from the same monarch."
_Are White Cats deaf?_--White cats are reputed to be "hard of hearing." I have known many instances, and in all stupidity seemed to accompany the deafness. Can any instances be given of white cats possessing the function of hearing in anything like perfection?
_Arms in Dugdale's "Warwickshire," &c._--In Dugdale's _Warwickshire_ (1656), p. 733. fig. 21., is a coat of arms from the Prior's Lodgings at Maxstoke, viz. Or, fretty of ten pieces sa. with a canton gu. And in Shaw's _Hist. of Staffordshire_, vol. i. p. *210., is the notice of a similar coat from Armitage Church, near Rugeley, extracted out of _Church Notes_, by Wyrley the herald, taken about 1597: viz. "Rugeley as before, impaling O. fretty of ... S. with a canton G. Query if ..."
Dugdale gives another coat, p. 111. fig. 12., from the windows of Trinity Church, Coventry; viz. Arg. on a chev. sa. three _stars_ of the first. There is a mitre over this coat.
Can any of the correspondents of "N. & Q." assign the family names to these arms? Does the mitre necessarily imply a bishop or mitred abbot; and, if not, does it belong to John de Ruggeley, who was Abbot of Merevale (not far from Coventry) temp. Hen. VI., one branch of whose family bore--Arg. on a chev. sa. three _mullets_ of the first. I may observe that this John was perhaps otherwise connected with Coventry; for Edith, widow of Nicholas de Ruggeley, his brother, left a legacy, says Dugd., p. 129., to an anchorite mured up at Stivichall Church, a member of St. Michael's Church, Coventry.