Chautauqua Institution

[We solicit questions of interest to the readers of The Chautauquan to be answered in this department. Our space does not always allow us to answer as rapidly as questions reach us. Any relevant question will receive an answer in its turn.]

Q. Who was Achilles?

A. Achilles was the hero of Homer’s Iliad, the son of Peleus, King of Thessaly, and the sea-nymph, Thetis. The poets feigned that his mother dipped him into the river Styx to render him invulnerable, and that he was vulnerable only in the heel by which she held him. He was killed by Paris, or, as some say, by Apollo, who shot him in the heel.

Q. Is the cat considered, by scientific men, as a domestic animal?

A. Cat is the general name for animals of the genus felis, which comprises about fifty different species. The domestic cat is one of these species, and is generally believed to have sprung from the Egyptian cat, a native of the north of Africa. This seems to be the only species that is generally employed in household economy.

Q. Will The Chautauquan please recommend a dictionary that would be a help in pronouncing words found in the “History of Greece?”

A. Lippincott’s Pronouncing Biographical Dictionary would be of service. It is published by Lippincott & Co., Philadelphia.

Q. Will The Chautauquan please tell me where I can obtain photographs of the works of the old masters of art, cabinet size?

A. By sending a six-cent stamp to the Soule Photograph Co., (successors to John P. Soule), 338 Washington street, Boston, Mass., a catalogue may be obtained of three thousand seven hundred subjects of unmounted photographs of ancient and modern works of art, embracing reproductions of famous paintings, sculpture and architecture.

Q. What is the meaning and origin of “red-letter day?”

A. In almanacs holidays and saints’ days are printed in red ink, other days in black. Any day to be recalled with pleasure, or a lucky day, may be styled a “red-letter day.”

Q. In addition to the C. L. S. C. course for this year I have taken the White Seal course. Where shall I send for my examination papers?

A. To Miss K. F. Kimball, Plainfield, N. J.

Q. In Wheatland’s History it is stated that Pompeii and and Herculaneum were Greek cities. Were they not Roman?

A. They were both Roman cities, situated in Southern Italy at the base of Mt. Vesuvius.

Q. Will The Chautauquan please give a little information concerning geodes? I can only find a mere definition in the dictionaries at my command.

A. A geode is a hollow shell of stone, usually quartz, lined with crystals pointing toward the center. These crystals are generally of amethystine quartz, agate or chalcedony. Besides quartz crystals, others of calcareous spar are sometimes found in the cavities of geodes. Some of the most remarkable specimens of quartz geodes are found loose in the low stages of water in the rapids of the Upper Mississippi river. On the outside they are rough and unsightly, of a light brown color and of all sizes up to fifteen inches in diameter.

Q. In the November Chautauquan Whittier is credited with the authorship of the lines beginning “Ah, what would the world be to us if the children were no more?” Is not that a mistake?

A. Yes. The lines were written by Longfellow.

Q. Will the Editor’s Table please tell where is the nearest local circle to Racine?

A. Ask Miss Kate F. Kimball, Plainfield, N. J., for the information.

Q. I have long wished to know the difference between Mahomet and Mohammed, will the Chautauquan please tell me?

A. Two forms of the same name—the former the French, the latter the German form.