Hong Kong.
_The Spinning-machine of the Ancients._--Can any of your readers give a
satisfactory explanation of the difficult passage which occurs at the end
of Catullus' _Epithalamium_, containing the description of the
spinning-wheel of the Fates? As this has been such a perplexing subject
hitherto to commentators, a solution of the terms there employed, {516}
illustrated by a plan of the machine, would doubtless be a boon to many who
have unsuccessfully tried to understand it.
[Greek: Philomathês.]
_View of Dumfries._--I have a modern lithographed view of the town of
Dumfries, said to have been taken from an old engraving in some printed
book. It represents a small chapel (the Crystal Chapel) on a height in the
foreground, and the walls of the town and the old church behind. I have in
vain sought for the original, and have almost come to the conclusion that
the drawing is a forgery. Can any of your readers who have access to the
Bodleian, inform me whether anything of the kind is to be found in Gough's
_Topographical Collections_, which are there deposited?