NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE l8l 



repeat ten syllables most articulately and distinctly, especially 

 if quick dactyls were chosen. The last syllables of 



" Tityre, tu patulae recubans "... 



were as audibly and intelligibly returned as the first ; and there 

 is no doubt, could trial have been made, but that at midnight, 

 when the air is very elastic, and a dead stillness prevails, one 

 or two syllables more might have been obtained ; but the dis- 

 tance rendered so late an experiment very inconvenient. 



Quick dactyls, we observed, succeeded best ; for when we 

 came to try its powers in slow, heavy, embarrassed spondees 

 of the same number of syllables, 



" Monstrum horrendutn, informe, ingens," . . . 



we could perceive a return but of four or five. 



All echoes have some one place to which they are returned 

 stronger and more distinct than to any other; and that is always 

 the place that lies at right angles with the object of repercus- 

 sion, and is not too near, nor too far off. Buildings, or naked 

 rocks, re-echo much more articulately than hanging woods or 

 vales ; because in the latter the voice is as it were entangled 

 and embarrassed in the covert, and weakened in the rebound. 



The true object of this echo, as we found by various experi- 

 ments, is the stone-built, tiled hop-kiln in Gaily Lane, which 

 measures in front forty feet, and from the ground to the eaves 

 twelve feet. The true centrum phonicum, or just distance, is 

 one particular spot in the King's Field, in the path to Nore Hill 

 on the very brink of the steep balk above the hollow cart-way. 

 In this case there is no choice of distance ; but the path, by 

 mere contingency, happens to be the lucky, the identical spot, 

 because the ground rises or falls so immediately, if the speaker 

 either retires or advances, that his mouth would at once be above 

 or below the object. 



We measured this polysyllabical echo with great exactness, 

 and found the distance to fall very short of Dr. Plot's rule for 

 distinct articulation ; for the Doctor, in his history of Oxford- 

 shire, allows a hundred and twenty feet for the return of each 

 syllable distinctly ; hence this echo, which gives ten distinct 

 syllables, ought to measure four hundred yards, or one hun- 



