By an act of the Lord Protector and Parliament, made in 1656, it was enacted that no person or persons should dig within the houses or lands of any person or persons of the commonwealth for the finding of saltpetre, nor take the carriages of any person or persons for the carrying of their materials or vessels, without their leave first obtained or had. (_Scobell_, 377.) This is the act referred to by BROCTUNA ("N. & Q.," Vol. vii., p. 434.), and by my friend MR. ISAIAH DECK ("N. & Q.," Vol. vii., p. 460.), though I am not certain that MR. DECK'S inference be correct, that this act was passed in consequence of the new and uncertain process for obtaining the constituents of nitre having failed; and it is quite clear that Lord Coke could not have referred to this act. The enactment referred to is introduced by way of proviso in an act allowing the exportation of goods of English manufacture (_inter alia_, of gunpowder, when the price did not exceed 5l. per cwt.). Allow me, in connexion, with this subject, to refer to Cullum's _History of Hawsted_, 1st edition, pp. 150. and 151., also to the statute 1 Jac. II. c. 8. s. 3., by which persons obtaining any letters patent for the sole making or importing gunpowder are subjected to the pains and penalties of praemunire. C. H. COOPER. Cambridge. {532} * * * * * FORMS OF JUDICIAL OATHS. (Vol. vii., p. 458.) Will you permit me to make a few observations in reply to the Queries of MR. H. H. BREEN on this subject? There is hardly any custom more ancient than for a person imposing a promise on another to call on him to bind himself by an oath to the due performance of it. In this oath the person swearing calls on God, the king, his father, or some person or thing to whom he attaches authority or value, to inflict on him punishment or loss in case he breaks his oath. The mode of swearing is, in one particular, almost everywhere and in every age the same. When a father, a friend, a sword, or any corporeal object is sworn by, _the swearer places his hand upon it_, and then swears. When a man, however, swore by the Deity, on whom he cannot place his hand, he raised his hand to heaven towards the God by whom he swore. When Abraham made Abimelech swear to obey him, he caused him to place his hand under his thigh, and then imposed the oath; and when Jacob, by his authority as a father, compelled his son Joseph to swear to perform his promise, he ordered him to go through a similar ceremony. (Genesis, ch. xxiv. v. 5., and ch. xlvii. v. 29.) In the prophet Daniel we read that-- "The man clothed in linen which was upon the waters, held up his right hand and his left hand unto heaven, and sware by Him that liveth for ever and ever," &c.--Daniel, ch. xii. v. 7. In the Revelation we also find--