This particular spot, which is close to the High Street, is always called The Pallant.
Can any of your readers inform me of the origin and meaning of this word?
I have never met with any inhabitant of Chichester who could solve this difficulty.
A Cantab.
Curious Fact in Natural Philosophy.—The Exeter Alfred of 1828 has in one of its numbers the following:
"Cut a couple of cards each into a circle of about two inches in diameter; perforate one of these at the centre, and fix it on the top of a tube, say a common quill. Make the other card ever so little concave, and place it over the first, the orifice of the tube being that directly under, and almost in contact with the concave card. Try to blow off the upper card, you will find it impossible. We understand that the cause that counteracts the effect at first expected of this singular phenomenon, has lately puzzled all the members of the Royal Society. A medal and a hundred guineas are said to be the reward of the successful discoverer.
Could any of the correspondents of "N. & Q." give any additional information on this rather curious point?
Elginensis.
Drying up of the Red Sea.—Will some of your correspondents kindly assist me, by a reference to a passage in one of our modern historians, alluding to the extraordinary drying up of the Red Sea on one occasion? I thought I had read it in Rollin, as a quotation from Baronius, but cannot now find it in either one or the other.
W. Stillman.