"My father's calculations, &c., for Moore's Almanack, continued during a period of forty-three years; and although through his great talent and management he increased the sale of that work from 100,000 to 500,000, yet, strange to say, all he received for his services was 25l. per ann.!! Yet I never heard him murmur even once about it; such was his delight in pursuing his favourite studies, that his anxiety about remuneration was out of the question. Sir Richard Phillips, who at times visited him at Royston, once met him in London, and endeavoured to persuade him to go with him to Stationers' Hall, and he would get him 100l.; but he declined going, saying that he was satisfied."
Andrews was also computer to the Board of Longitude, and Maskelyne's Letters evidence the value and correctness of his calculations.
The only materials left by Andrews for a memoir of his life I believe I possess, and some day I may find leisure to put them into order for publication.
ROBT. COLE.
Scurvy Ale.
—The Query (Vol. iv., p. 68.) "What was scurvy ale?" may perhaps be answered by an extract from a little work, The Polar Sea and Regions, published by Oliver and Boyd, Edinburgh. In the account of Baffin's voyage, in which he discovered the bay called after him Baffin's Bay, we are told that—
"Finding the health of his crew rather declining, he sailed across to Greenland, where an abundance of scurvy grass boiled in beer quickly restored them; and the Lord then sent them a speedy and good passage homeward."
Johnson explains scurvy-grass as spoonwort.
W. FRASER.