Royal Society. 557 



Northumberland, with a few remarks on the Rain-gauge." By the 

 Rev. W. Walton, F.R.S. 



The author shows that if the mouth of a rain-gauge be placed in 

 any plane which is not perfectly horizontal, the results will be liable 

 to inaccuracy, whatever may be the direction in which the rain falls. 

 He thinks that, on many occasions, the drops of rain diminish in 

 their size during their descent on entering warmer regions of the 

 atmosphere, so as finally to disappear. 



2. "The Scholar's Lute among the Chinese." By — Lay, Esq. 

 Communicated by S. H. Christie, Esq., Sec. R.S. 



The Kin, which is the stringed instrument here described, was 

 the one played upon by Confucius and the sages of antiquity, and is 

 therefore held sacred by men of letters. It is made of the Woo-tung, 

 or Dryandria cordifolia. It is convex above and plane below, and is 

 wider at one end than at the other ; it has two quadrangular aper- 

 tures in the plane surface, which open into as many hollows within 

 the body of the instrument ; and it is furnished with seven silken 

 strings of different diameters, which pass over the smaller end, and 

 are distributed between two immovable pegs below. A bridge 

 within a short distance of the wider extremity gives these strings 

 the necessary elevation and a passage to the under surface, where, by 

 means of a row of pegs, they are tightened or relaxed at pleasure. 

 The length of the sounding-board is divided by thirteen studs of 

 nacre, or mother-of-pearl, as a guide for the performer ; and they 

 are placed so that the length of each string is bisected, trisected, &c., 

 that is, divided into aliquot parts as far as the eighth subdivision, with 

 the omission of the seventh, the number of sections being repre- 

 sented by the arithmetical series 



2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 0, 8. 

 Thus the intervals, or magnitudes of the different tones sounded by 

 this instrument, do not accord with those produced on our violin, 

 but agree more with the old Scotch music. The study of this in- 

 strument, and the art of playing upon it, are rendered extremely 

 difficult by the complexity of the Chinese notation of written music, 

 which leads to frequent omissions and blunders. Thus every air 

 which a Chinese plays has cost him the labour of many months to 

 learn; and so tiresome is this acquisition, that the author has heard 

 some extemporize very prettily without being able to play a single 

 air. Their performance, however, is very graceful ; and though the 

 melody be simple, every scope is given to variety by the mode of 

 touching the strings. The author enters into an examination of the 

 musical theory of the sounds produced by this instrument. 

 April 22. — 'I'he following papers were read, viz. — 



1. Magnetic-term Observations taken on board H.M.S. Erelms 

 and Terror, at Hobart Town, on the 29th and 30th August, and 

 the 23rd and 24tli September, 1840, by, and under the direction of 

 James Clark Ross, Captain R.N., F.R.S., and Commander of the 

 Antarctic Expedition. 



2. Magnetic-term Observations made at the fixed Magnetic Obser- 

 vatory, Van Dieraen',s Land, on the 28th, 29tli and 30th August, 



