54 REPORT—1840. 
low and curved, and the voice, acting within the curvatures, produces 
prolonged and concentrated reflections (as in all such cases) inimical 
to speech ; the windows are much exposed to the voice, and the divi- 
sions of the seats rise too much above each other, all which occasion 
lengthened reverberations, to the prejudice of speech. The asperities 
presented by the ornaments on the walls, and the capitals of two ranges 
of Corinthian pillars, occasion harsh reflections, which are unpleasant. 
All these defects are, however, lost in a great measure in the lower 
part of the building, where little inconvenience is experienced. In Dr. 
Lee’s church, in St. Giles’s, Edinburgh, in which the General Assem- 
bly met, but were obliged to abandon it as their place of meeting, the 
arrangements are such that the preacher is very indistinctly heard at 
the distance of twenty feet, and there are two galleries at the extremi- 
ties of the church which are locked up as useless. Similar causes pro- 
duce similar effects in St. Luke’s Church in Liverpool. Here there is 
a locomotive pulpit, for the purpose of rolling the preacher from place 
to place ; but there is even a gross evil in this vehicle, which accom- 
panies it and the speaker to whatever point he may be conveyed. The 
canopy over his head is a deep hollow body, formed of thin deal ; it is 
literally a drum, as may be understood by striking it, and produces 
deep hollow sounds, operating in a transeverse direction, and most 
prejudicially on the voice of a speaker. The author notices several 
other cases, and states that it is not by creating additional or increa- 
sing reflected sounds, but by bringing the action of the reflecting sur- 
rounding solids to move in time with the mechanism by which speech 
is produced, and by this means, reflected sounds to accord with every 
distinct letter that the speaker pronounces; it is by shortening the 
action, and limiting the time of each distinct reflection from the glass, 
thin deal boards, &c., to the time in which each letter is formed by the 
speaker. This, in fact, however simple it may seem, must be effected, 
otherwise no form in the walls of an apartment for public speaking can 
accomplish what is necessary for the economy of speech. 
On a Method of approximating to the Value of the Roots of Numerical 
Equations. By Mr.Granam. 
On the Expressibility of the Roots of Algebraic Equations, 
By Mr. Peres. 
Since the function of the coefficients which expresses the general 
root of an equation must be such as to represent all the roots, the 
author seeks to discover that particular function of its quantities. 
After proving that various combinations will not suffice, he shows that 
certain others will do so in certain cases. 
