On the Sou7ids of the Gases. 27 



tended the number of their gaseous bodies (or mixtures of such 

 to seventeen) without however adopting in these repetitions, the 

 liints which I gave at page 5, for detennimng the pitch in 

 future experiment, hy ike beats made between the gaseous sound 

 and those of other pipes, previously and carefully tuned to fixed 

 Diatonic Notes, near enough to them, in each case, and, blown 

 constantly by atmospheric air, in the same manner as the staxi- 

 tlard C pipe in their experiments was blown. 



I recommended tliis course to Messrs. K. and M. in order to 

 avoid the great uncertainty, which practical tuners have foimd, 

 in unisons even upon sounding bodies of the same kind, us 

 strings and strings, pipes and pipes, &c. and much more so in 

 tuning strings from pipes, or vice versa, &c. It is for enabling 

 future Experimenters to resort to this more accurate method 

 than the monochord, that would doubtless remove, or much 

 lessen, the very considerable disagreements that still exists 

 between the repetitions of these gentlemen's experiments, and 

 between their average results, on the present and former occa- 

 sion, that I now trouble you with, an extraet of their general re- 

 sults (from Mr. Nicholson's Journal, vol. xxxiii. p. 171) in the 

 two first colunins of the following Table ; only reversing the or- 

 der, that I might place the most acute sounds towards the 

 top, as the notes are placed on the music stave. 



The third column shows the intervals in my notation reckoned 

 each way from atmospheric air ; the fourth column shows the 

 excess or defect of these, compared with the nearest Note oh 

 the Rev. Henry Liston's Eitharmotiic Organ (which remains 

 vet on view at Messrs. Flight and Robson's); the method of tun- 

 ing which Notes by means of perfect concords only, I have fully 

 explained in your xxxvlith volume, p. 275, and xxxixth volumcj 

 p. 374 and 421. And the 6th and last column shows, the 

 Beats in one second of time, and whether Jlat or sharp, that 

 these mean results (as indicated by the monochord lengths in 

 coiunni 2) would make with Mr. Liston's Notes in the preceding 

 column, respectively, when Tenor-clif C is yielded by the stan- 

 dard experiment pipe, blown by common atmospheric air, and 

 excites just 240 complete vibrations therein, in one second of 

 time. 



Tabub 



