Mr. Editor,--The subject of inscribed dishes of latten, of which so many varieties have recently been imported, appears to be regarded with interest by several of your readers. I am indebted to the Rev. William Drake, of Coventry, for a rubbing from one of these mysterious inscriptions, upon an "alms-plate" in his possession. In the centre is represented the Temptation. There are two inscribed circles; on the inner and broader one appear letters, which have been read,--RAHEWISHNBY. They are several times repeated. On the exterior circle is the legend On the exterior circle is the legend--ICH. SART. GELUK. ALZEIT. This likewise is repeated, so as to fill the entire circle. I have never before met with these inscriptions in the large number of dishes of this kind which I have examined. The have been termed alms-dishes, and are used still in parochial collections in France, as doubtless they have been in England. They were also used in ancient times in the ceremony of baptism, and they are called baptismal basins, by some foreign writers. This use is well illustrated by the very curious early Flemish painting in the Antwerp Gallery, representing the seven sacraments. The acolyte, standing near the font, bears such a dish, and a napkin. The proper use of these latten dishes was, as I believe, to serve as a laver, carried round at the close of the banquet in old times, as now at civic festivities. They often bear devices of a sacred character; but it is probable that they were only occasionally used for any scared purpose, and are more properly to be regarded as part of the domestic appliances of former times. ALBERT WAY. * * * * * BARNACLES. In Brand's _Popular Antiquities_, vol. iii. pp. 361, 362., there is an account given of _the barnacle_, "a well-known kind of shell-fish, which is found sticking on the bottoms of ships," and with regard to which the author observes, that "it seems hardly credible in this enlightened age, that so gross an error in natural history should so long have prevailed," as that this shell-fish should become changed into "a species of goose." The author then quotes Holinshed, Hall, Virgidemiarum, Marston, and Gerard; but he does not make the slightest reference to Giraldus Cambrensis, who is his _Topographia Hiberniae_ first gave the account of the barnacle, and of that account the writers referred to by Brand were manifestly but the copyists. The passage referring to "the barnacle" will be found in the _Topog. Hiber._ lib. i. e. xi. I annex a translation of it, as it may be considered interesting, when compared with the passages quoted in Brand:--