"I am the grandson of Isaac Levi, for many years dead, reader of a congregation of Jews in London; my father, Benjamin Levi, is still alive, and is with me. I keep a school at Landour, in the Hymmalayas, in the north-western provinces of India. I have been led to write to you after reading your _Pilgrimage to the Land of My Fathers_, and seeing in it that you are the author of a work entitled _The Jews in Great Britain_, which I have not seen, and concluding from this that if any one can obtain information you can.
"I send this letter to Messrs. Smith and Elder, booksellers, of Cornhill, London, with a request to send it to you through your publisher, Mr. R. Bentley," &c. &c.
I do not feel justified in publishing the last two paragraphs in my correspondent's letter, and have therefore omitted them. I shall feel extremely obliged to any of the readers of "N. & Q." who could and would help me to answer the anxious Query from the Hymmalayas.
"_De la Schola de Sclavoni._"--On a large marble slab at North Stoneham, near Southampton, is the following, inscription:
Año Dni MCCCCLXXXI Sepvltvra de la Schola de Sclavoni."
Is this the burial-place of the family of one of the foreign merchants settled in this country, and can any of the correspondents of "N. & Q." give any information about it?
_Mineral Acids._--As it is generally supposed that these powerful solvents were not known anterior to circiter A.D. 1100, I should be glad to learn what opinion is entertained by the learned concerning { 340} the death of the prophet Haken al Mokannah. This person is said to have disappeared in 785, or 163 of the Hejrah, by casting himself into a barrel of corrosive fluids, which dissolved his body. Is it not the best supposition, that this story was supposed by Khondemir and others, in more advanced ages of science, to account for the fact of his having disappeared, and of his real fate having never been ascertained? I have never seen this apparent anticipation of chemical discoveries animadverted on.
_Richard Geering._--Wanted, arms, pedigree, and particulars of the family of Richard Geering, one of the six clerks in Chancery in Ireland from March 1700 to April 1735. One of his daughters, Prudence, married, in 1722, Charles Coote, Esq., M.P., and by him was mother of the last Earl of Bellamont. Another daughter, Susannah, was wife of Mr. Charles Wilson; who was, it is believed, a connexion of the family of Ward of Newport, in Shropshire. Any information about Mr. Wilson's ancestry would be very acceptable.