_Key Experiments_ (Vol. v., p. 152.).--Perhaps J. P. Jun. may not be aware that an experiment somewhat similar to these is practised in the Isle of Man. The operator holds a thread between the finger and thumb, with a shilling fixed horizontally to it, gradually drops the shilling into a glass, and after it has once become stationary, the shilling begins to oscillate, and, as the superstition goes, invariably strikes the hour of the day against the glass. I have frequently practised it, and consider the motive power to be the pulse, which is completely under the operator's control. This performance has been known in the Isle of Man certainly more than a century, and bears a resemblance to the experiments of Mayo and Reichenbach with the Od Force, or the vagaries of the Magnetoscope. Perhaps some of your correspondents can instance cases and tricks of this kind of much earlier date. AGMOND. Minor Notes. _Rhymes connected with Places._--There are many villages in England, the names of which have old traditionary couplets attached to them, illustrating some natural or other peculiarity; some such have already incidentally found their way into the pages of "N. & Q." Might not a complete collection be easily made, and would it not be an interesting one? I send, as a beginning, two Staffordshire villages in my immediate neighbourhood, which are very characteristically described. One is-- "Wootton under Weaver, Where God came never," being very lonely, and out-of-the-way; and the other-- "Stanton on the stones, Where the Devil broke his bones," which explains itself. W. FRASER. _French Dates._--I annex a singular connexion between the dates of some of the most important occurrences in the history of France, which was mentioned to me by a French lady, with whom I had the pleasure of travelling from Soissons to Paris the day after the melancholy death of the Duke of Orleans, in July 1842. By following out the same principle of addition, the next great national event appears to be in store for the year 1857. Of course the superstitious reader must shut his eyes on 1848. 1794 - Period of Robespierre. 1 7 9 4 ---- 1815 - Waterloo. 1 8 1 5 ---- 1830 - Revolution. 1 8 3 0 ---- 1842 - Death of the Duke of Orleans. E. N.