and 4th vols. of the _Edinburgh Philosophical Transactions_. And many
others might be referred to; but all tending to prove that our numbers
came originally from China and India, through Persia, Arabia, Africa,
Spain, and Italy, by gradual and successive changes in form, several
of them still retaining a close resemblance to the ancient and modern
Sanscrit, Chinese, Arabic, Persian, and Hindoo numerals.

Henry Wilkinson.

* * * * *

REPLIES TO MINOR QUERIES.

I send you a few Notes on Queries scattered through some of the later
numbers of your very valuable publication:

_Anonymous Ravennas_.--In the library of the Royal Geographical
Society, I believe there is a copy of an 8vo. edition of that
cosmography.

_Selago_.--This plant, I should think it probable, is the _Lycopodium
clavatum_ of modern botanists; the seeds of which, when ripe, and when
the plant is struck, rise like smoke ("fumum" of Pliny), and may have
been supposed, from their remarkable inflammability when dashed into
a flame, igniting with a sudden flash, to have possessed wonderful
virtues. The species known as _Lycopodium selago_ is rare in
comparison to the other.

_Portugal_.--In the library of the Geographical Society are some of
the more recent works published in Lisbon on the topography of that