PROCEEDINGS OF THE AMERICAN ACADEMY. 



than it purports to be, making, according to Koenig, 185.45 doable vibra- 

 tions | .. r second instead of 485, when at the temperature of 15 < !., and 

 making exactly 435 vibrations only at the temperature 24.26 C. But 

 the legal French | »i t « - 1 » was defined l>y the rate 870 Bingle vibrations, and 

 not by the fork constructed by the Commission. Moreover the standard 

 French forks made by Koenig were substantially correct in rate. The 

 difference is, of course, too Blight to be of any consequence in practice. 



The [nternational pitch has come to be generally adopted, so that it 

 i- dow the standard pitch of this country, although it Beems to be custom- 

 ary to tune pianos for use at concerts somewhat sharp, even up • A 

 440 vibrations, which is in fact the " Stuttgart pitch " of L884. 



At various times during the past twenty years the writer has taken the 

 opportunity to ascertain the rates of sucli tuning-forks and other stan- 

 dards of pitch as were accessible. The results of a considerable number 

 of these- immurements were published in the "American Journal of 

 Otology " for October, 18*0, in a paper "On the Present Condition of 

 Musical Pitch in Boston and Vicinity," by Charh - R. < ross and William 

 T. Miller. The later measurements have not hitherto been published. 

 These have been made in part by the writer and in part by Beveral of 

 his assistants in the Ropers Laboratory, Messrs. Goodwin. Mansfield, 

 Wendell, and Burgess. The present paper is intended to include such 

 results as are likely to be of general interest. 



Table I. is reprinted from the paper of Messrs. Cross and Miller. 

 The tonometer forks available at the time of its publication were less 

 accurate than those which have been procured subsequently, bo that in 

 certain cases, when- the standards measured in 1880 were still accessible 

 a remeasurement has recently been made, the results of which will be 

 found in Table II. Where this has been done, it is indicated in the 

 tables by an asterisk prefixed to the number designating the Btandard. 

 By a comparison of Tables I. and II. it will be Been that the remeasure- 

 ments have not materially altered the values obtained in the earner 

 measurements. 



The standard C fork upon which the measurements of 1880 were 

 based was a C 8 fork (No. 1 of Table I.) by Koenig, belonging to the 

 Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the rate of which had been deter- 

 mined by comparison with a C, fork 1>\ Koenig belonging to the Stevens 

 [nstitute of Technology, which last fork bad been very carefully rated 

 by 1'rofessor A. M. -Mayer of that institution. The standard A used 

 was a fork by Koenig assumed to be exact. From these the forks of an 

 improvised tonometer were rated, the C forks being of pitch C, and 



