_Stone Pillar Worship_ (Vol. vii., p. 383.).--The Rowley Hills near Dudley, twelve in number, and each bearing a distinctive name, make up what may be called a mountain of basaltic rock, which extends for several miles in the direction of Hales Owen. From the face of a precipitous termination of the southern extremity of these hills rises a pillar of rock, known as the "The Hail Stone." I conjecture that the word _hail_ may be a corruption of the archaic word _haly_, holy; and that this pillar of rock may have been the object of religious worship in ancient times. The name may have been derived directly front the Anglo-Saxon _Haleg stan_, holy stone. It is about three quarters of a mile distant from an ancient highway called "The Portway," which is supposed to be of British origin, and to have led to the salt springs at Droitwich. I have no knowledge of any other place bearing the name of Hail Stone, except a farm in the parish of West Fetton in Shropshire, which is called "The Hail Stones." No stone pillars are now to be found upon it: there is a quarry in it which shows that the sand rock lies there very near the surface. Dr. Plot, in his _History of Staffordshire_ (p. 170.), describes the rock on the Rowley Hills as being "as big and as high on one side as many church steeples are." He relates that he visited the spot in the year 1680, accompanied by a land-surveyor, who, ten years before that time, had noticed that at this place the needle of the compass was turned six degrees from its due position. The influence which the iron in basaltic rocks has on the needle was not known at that period, and the Doctor makes two conjectures in explanation of the phenomenon observed. First, he says, "there must be in these lands that miracle of Nature we call a loadstone;" and he adds, "unless it come to pass by some old armour buried hereabout in the late civil war." The sonorous property of the rock led him to conjecture "that there might be here a vault in which some great person of ancient times might be buried under this natural monument; but digging down by it as near as I could where the sound directed, I could find no such matter." Plot does not mention the name by which this rock was known. It is not mentioned at all by either Erdeswick, Shaw, or Pitt, in their Histories of Staffordshire. N. W. S. _Bad_ (Vol. vi. p. 509.).--Horne Tooke's etymology may, perhaps, satisfy B. H. COWPER'S inquiry, or at least gratify his curiosity. He assumes the _bay_ or bark of a dog to be excited by what it _abhors_, _hates_, _defies_; and farther, that our epithet of _bad_ is applied by us to that, which, for reasons which we may call moral (_æsthetic_, I believe {208} I ought to say) reasons or feelings, we _hate_, or _abhor_. And he forms it thus, _bay-ed_, bay'd, ba'd, _bad_. Q. Bloomsbury.