[Our Correspondent has forwarded five specimens, four of which are
certainly very satisfactory, the fifth is the one prepared by
brushing.]
* * * * *
Replies to Minor Queries.
_The Groaning Elm-plank in Dublin_ (Vol. viii., p. 309.).--DR. RIMBAULT has
given an account of the groaning-board, one of the popular delusions of two
centuries ago: the following notice of it, extracted from my memoir of Sir
Thomas Molyneux, Bart., M.D., and published in the _Dublin University_ for
September, 1841, may interest your readers:
"In one of William Molyneux's communications he mentions the exhibition
of 'the groaning elm-plank' in Dublin, a curiosity that attracted much
attention and many learned speculations about the years 1682 and 1683.
He was, however, too much of a philosopher to be gulled with the rest
of the people who witnessed this so-called 'sensible elm-plank,' which
is said to have groaned and trembled on the application of a hot iron
to one end of it. After explaining the probable cause of the noise and
tremulousness by its form and condition, and by the sap being made to
pass up through the pores or tubuli of the plank which was in some
particular condition, he says: 'But, Tom, the generality of mankind is
lazy and unthoughtful, and will not trouble themselves to think of the
reason of a thing: when they have a brief way of explaining anything
that is strange by saying, "The devil's in it," what need they trouble
their heads about pores, and matters, and motion, figure, and
disposition, when the devil and a witch shall solve the phenomena of
nature.'"