P.S.--If I am not presuming too much upon your kindness, I should feel greatly indebted for information upon the above points, either privately or through the medium of "N. & Q.," according to the importance you may attach to them. * * * * * Replies to Minor Queries. _Essay for a New Translation of the Bible_ (Vol. vii., p. 40.).--This work was written by Charles Le Cene, a French Protestant minister, who, on the revocation of the edict of Nantes, sought refuge in England, and died at London in 1703. The translation was made by Hugh Ross, a Scotchman and sea-chaplain, but who was not sufficiently ingenuous to tell his readers that it was a translation. Orme says: "The essay contains a good deal of valuable information; points out many erroneous renderings of passages of Scripture; and suggests better meanings, and the means of correcting the modern translations generally."--_Bibliothecha Biblica_, p. 94. A short account of Le Cene will be found in Chalmers's _Biog. Dict._ See also Lewis's _Translations of the Bible_, 8vo. 1818, p. 338. JOHN I. DREDGE. I have a copy of the _Essay for a New Translation of the Bible_, second edition, 1727 (not 1717), which your correspondent W. W. T. inquires about (Vol. vii., p. 40.). It is the translation of a work of the Huguenot refugee, Charles Le Cene, _Projet d'une nouvelle version françoise de la Bible_. H. R., who signs the dedication, was Hugh Ross, according to a note in my copy, which my father made on the authority of one of the clergy of Norwich about twenty years ago, I believe of Dr. Charles Sutton. I have been unable to ascertain anything about him, his name not appearing in any biographical dictionary I have seen, and the book not being in the Museum library. The _Biog. Universelle_ charges Le Cene with a tendency to Pelagian or Socinian errors, both in his _Projet_, and in the _Version_ he actually made, and which was printed at Amsterdam. This was a great curiosity in its way, the ancient Oriental titles, &c. being rendered in their corresponding modern analogues. B. B. WOODWARD. _Touchstone_ (Vol. vii., p. 82.).--I think your correspondent ALPHAGE is mistaken in alleging that the word _touchstone_ is so called because it "gives a musical sound when touched with a stick." The _touchstone_ is the dark-coloured flinty slate or schistus (the _Lapis Lydius_ of the ancients), which has been used from the remotest ages, down even to our own days, for testing gold. By touching the black stone with the metal, it leaves behind a clear mark, the colour of which indicates the distinction between the pure and alloyed. Pliny describes it (lib. xxxiii. cap. 43.):