1313.)

After

wards I described the top of these hills, on which the lime-stone strata are bassetting-out: then I came to a great intersection of these hills, near the town of Wells, in which intersection is the opening of a famous cavern named Wookey-hole; whence, as well as at the foot of Cheddercliffs, issues a clear stream of water; a proof that there are in these hills large reservoirs, where the waters, muddy when they enter the crevices of the surface in time of rain, deposit their sedi. ments. I went some way in that cavern with the guide who is accustomed to attend the curious, and he gave me the same description of the internal parts of the hill, as I had heard at Chedder-cliffs; for he told me that these caverns also were interrupted by great faults, branching off in various directions; and he gave ine a proof that all these caverns communicated to one another from Wookey-hole to Chedder-cliffs; that a dog, entering at the former, and losing its way to return, had come out some days after at Chedder cliffs, quite emaciated.

After having related all these circumstances, I came at p. 429 of the same volame, to shew that these caverns, in our continents, demonstrated the pre-existence of cavities in the globe. It is impossible to doubt that these caverns have been produced by some catastrophes of the strata, that catastrophe must have been occasioned either by the subsidence of the parts now the lowest, as in my system; or by the lifting up of the parts now the highest, which appears to be Mr. Farey's sense, when he speaks of lifts in Derbyshire. But, whatever be the case in this last respect, I decided that absolute dilemma, by the following peremptory argument. If the highest parts had been raised, there could not have existed any vacancy in the mass thus lifted up; since the pressure exercised from below, would have been communicated In succession to every part of the mass. Whereas, in the subsidence of the strata, there must haye remained vacancies with

1

23

all the characters observed in our caverns, in the manner which I have explained. In

a journey after this, proceeding from Totness, along the river Dart, I described the singular changes, at the same level, between the lime-stone and the schisti, with grey-wacke; the former of which, in that country, are called slate; and the latter, dun-stone. Such a situation of strata, so different in their kinds, cannot have any other cause they catastrophes. I stopped at Buckfastleigh, a small town, situated in a dale, behind a small insulated hill, which attracted my attention; for I saw it consisting, on one side, of lime-stone strata, much broken; and on the opposite side, of slate and dun-stone.

In walking quite around this hill, I met with a gentleman of the place, whom I found kindly disposed to answer my questions; his informations are related from page 104, of the second volume of my Travels in England; therefore I shall only give a short account of them. Having inquired of him, whether that mixture of different kinds of strata extended to a great distance, he answered me: "That in this country every thing indicated that there had been some great revolution, which had produced, not merely external disorder, but also great effects in the external parts of the ground." He then informed me, that in the mass of the calcareous strata, in parts where, being too deep, they did not appear externally, there were many caverns, of which he gave me the following particulars:-"They are divided into diferent chambers, adorned with pillars of sta lactites. It is very dangerous to proceed far in these caverns, con account of fissures so deep, that, if a large stone is thrown down them, it is heard for some time to strike against the sides, after which the noise generally dies away; but in some chasms, where, after some time, the stone can still be heard to reach the bottom, the sound is that of faling into water." This is again a phenomenon of the caverns of our Continents, which cannot be explained but by the subsidence of the broken strata, occasioned by previously existing cavities in the globe.

This gentleman told me farther: "That these caverns communicated with each other by passages, more or less wide, forming a kind of subterranean labyrinth, where no body darst venture far, and of which, therefore, the extent remained uknown.' unknown." As an instance of this, he related to me, " that some time before, when he had been out shooting, one of his dogs, pursuing a rabbit, had entered a hole in a rock; that he waited for him, and called him a long time, but in vain; so that he had concluded him actually lost in some cavern: however, after some days, the dog returned home, but excessively lean and almost dying; so that, though much care was taken of him, it was a great while before he recovered." This is the same case as the dog in the caverns of the Meudip hills, and shows precisely the nature of those caverns.

In the same part of my Travels, I described many other phænomena which I recommend to the attention of M. Farey, as they led me to the following conclusion, (repeated in many parts of my Travels, after similar descriptions :) "That no doubt can remain, that all the strata of that country have undergone subsidences, with angular motions of their parts divided by fractures; and that the low space through which the Dart now winds, is the part where this subsidence was the greatest." J. A. DE Luc.

Windsor.

To the Editor of the Monthly Magazine,

I

SIR,

N reply to an inquiry that night well be made, respecting the utility and superiority of the notation of musical intervals chosen by Mr. John Farey, that gentleman remarks, that logarithms represent ratios " only when an indefinitely great number of places of figures are used, the least or the greatest musical intervals, those having the most simple ratios (as 1:2) having just as long a sound and complicated a common logarithm as the largest, most incommensurate, or complicated ratio." Now, I wish to ask the ingenious Mr. Farey, what he means, in this sentence, by a long sound; and next, what the length of a sound has to do with musical intervals? By the length of a sound, is generally understood its duration, or the length of time, which it continues audible; and the most ignorant in harmonics will admit, that an interval is the same whether the two sounds which form or constitute that interval, continue audible for one minute, for half an hour, or for any portion of time whatever. As Mr. John Farey writes for the public, your readers have a right to expect that he will descend" to give some explanation.

Notwithstanding Mr. F.'s former en

deavours at explanation, I remain one of the many who cannot perceive the superiority of the notation which he has derived from the manuscripts in the Royal Institution. I still think, with Lord Stanhope and the author of the Retrospect (vol. iv. p. 4, 1809), that his way of expressing an interval by Σ. f. and m. is as unnecessary as to express the number 8691 by 8000+600+3 score +2 dozen+7. If any of your readers have reasons for holding a different opinion of Mr. Farey's would-be-thought improvement in the calculation of intervals, they would afford me, and others, much pleasure by making those reasons public. Mr. Liston indeed calls the notation ingenious, but no-where employs it in his large folio of 144 pages, wholly. on musical intervals, entitled an "Essay on Perfect Intonation;" 1812.

There is another practice of Mr. Farey's which, I am pleased to observe, is as little followed by respectable writers as the preceding. The practice to which I allude is the needless, or worse than needless, introduction of such words as the following, for which he seems to entertain a father's fondness: "Douzeave, quatorzeave, siezave, dixseptave, dixneuf ave, vingtunave, vingtduxave, vingtquatreave, cinquarteneufave." Philos. Mag. No. 170, &c.-Are these terms French or English? If French, why should we prefer French words to Latin or Italian ? Italian terms, it would appear, should have the preference, on account of that language being so much connected with music, and being, in the judgment of the great Dryden, the most musical of all languages, living or dead. If he is desirous to Frenchify our musical terms and to press the French cardinal numbers into his service, let him do so uni. formly, and write huitave instead of octave, &c. Perhaps, however, he may aspire to the reputation of a Hudibras, who

"Could coin or counterfeit

New words, with little or no wit,
Words so debased and hard, no stone
Was hard enough to touch them on."
These long words remind me of the terms

superparticular, subsuperparticular, sesquialterate, subsesquialterate, superpartient, subsuperpartient, submultiplex, superparticular," &c. &c. in Eu clid's Section of the Canon, and in some old and useless Treatises on Music. Mr. Farey's term douzeave, if I understand him, denotes a system in which there are eleven sounds differing in pitch, be

LWEC

tween any given sound, as C and its octave. Now a-days, when we have so many scales, as Hawkes', Loeschman's, Dr. R. Smith's, Liston's, &c. some new terms may be useful; but I do not like that they should be more than half French; nor do I approve of their having the termination in ave, because octave and septave, two established terms, are not employed to express that the interval 1:2 or viii. has so many different sounds between the two that constitute that interval as to divide it into eight or seven smaller intervals, but they are employed according to the musical degrees, -according to the literal names of the terminating sounds of the interval. The nomenclature of no science is so much 10 need of reformation as that of music, and, the longer Mr. F. may persist in the use of his mongrel names, the more will reformation be necessary: it will make hin the jest of the learned, though he may become the wonder of the ignorant. April 29, 1812. A. BODORGAN.

To the Editor of the Monthly Magazine,

SIR,

SORRY

ORRY I am to witness such a mistake relative to rice bread; and, in order to prevent farther imposition on your readers, be pleased to insert a few remarks: philosophers say, Look before you leap, which " F. S. S." has certainly omitted to do; for in the first place he, probably like Colonel Johnes, doubted the truth of its marvellous effects when he read of them, and he most likely set out with a mind filled with prejudice against rice; or, what is still more probable, he is a rice contractor for the British army in Portugal, or a regrater of bread corn, and is fearful of diminishing its consumption, as well as increasing the demand for rice. In the second place, he will recol lect that rice is like most other things, composed of good and bad, and most likely be procured very bad rice, on purpose to endeavour to frustrate Colonel Johnes's well-meant intentions. Exclusive of that gentleman's recoinmendation, in your Magazine for June, there was another under the signature of "Philanthropist," in the number for May; nor is this all, for I have seen it (with mine own eyes) recommended in twelve Magazines, which I could and would specify were it necessary, exclusive of several country and London Newspapers; and what, sir, have they all been " deceived by their servants!" for they were all under signatures.

MONTHLY MAG. No. 237.

Now, to a moral certainty, (which some folks say is no certainty at all) I have not been deluded by my servants, for, none can I afford to keep; lastly, as to its extreme unwholesomeness, I can only say that, I have eaten freely of it, and never felt any of the injurious effects; and, if it is so very unwholesome, how comes it to be used so much in our boarding-schools as it is, for puddings, &c. Again, I am acquainted with a very worthy gentlewoman, mistress of a small family of children, who have eaten ricebread for the last nine months, which I am sure would not have been the case, had it been judged in any degree inju rious to the health. S. LUKE.

Newbury.

To the Editor of the Monthly Magazine.

sin,

THE

HE liberality which first induced you to afford me an opportunity of submitting to an impartial public, through the medium of your highly valuable publication, my claim to be considered the actual inventor of the improvements on the piano-forte, for which Mr. Loeschman obtained a patent, will, I trust, be extended, to allow me, for a moment, to trespass further on the patience of your numerous readers, whilst I briefly offer a few remarks on the conduct of the two gentlemen Mr. L. mentioned in his reply to mine of February last.

In these Mr. L. made a feeble attempt to invalidate my statements, and to remove the impression they were calculated to make on the public mind, by endeavouring to establish two points: First, that he was under no obligation whatever for any assistance from me in the construction of his instrument, either scientific, original, or mechanical; for, at the period when he first requested my attention, "though he had not one completed, yet he had many in hand with six pedals."-Secondly, That all the sci entific knowledge I pretended to have afforded him, as something exclusively my own, was to be found in Kercher's and Dr. Smith's Harmonics; though he omitted to inform your readers at what part of either of these authors' works, the knowledge in question is to be found; and stating that, "it was from repeated interviews with an HonourableGentleman and Dr. Kemp, he was induced and enabled to perfect his invention."

My circumstantial refutation of all these particulars, by a full detail of facts, dates, and an explicit statement of the information

E