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dred and twenty feet to each syllable ; whereas our distance 

 is only two hundred and fifty-eight yards, or near seventy-five 

 feet, to each syllable. Thus our measure falls short of the 

 Doctor's, as five to eight ; but then it must be acknowledged 

 that this candid philosopher was convinced afterwards that 

 some latitude must be admitted of in the distance of echoes 

 according to time and place. 



When experiments of this sort are making, it should always 

 be remembered that weather and the time of day have a vast 

 influence on an echo ; for a dull, heavy, moist air deadens and 

 clogs the sound ; and hot sunshine renders the air thin and 

 weak, and deprives it of all its springiness, and a ruffling wind 

 quite defeats the whole. In a still, clear, dewy evening the 

 air is most elastic ; and perhaps the later the hour the more so. 



Echo has always been so amusing to the imagination, that 

 the poets have personified her ; and in their hands she has 

 been the occasion of many a beautiful fiction. Nor need the 

 gravest man be ashamed to appear taken with such a phe- 

 nomenon, since it may become the subject of philosophical or 

 mathematical inquiries. 



One should have imagined that echoes, if not entertaining, 

 must at least have been harmless and inoffensive ; yet Virgil 

 advances a strange notion that they are injurious to bees. 

 After enumerating some probable and reasonable annoyances, 

 such as prudent owners would wish far removed from their 

 bee-gardens, he adds : 



. . . " aut ubi concava pulsu 

 Saxa sonant, vocisque offensa resultat imago." 



This wild and fanciful assertion will hardly be admitted by 

 the philosophers of these days, especially as they all now seem 

 agreed that insects are not furnished with any organs of hear- 

 ing at all. But if it should be urged, that though they cannot 

 hear yet perhaps they may feel the repercussions of sounds, 

 I grant it is possible they may. Yet that these impressions 

 are distasteful or hurtful, I deny, because bees, in good sum- 

 mers, thrive well in my outlet, where the echoes are very strong; 

 for this village is another Anathoth, a place of responses and 

 echoes. Besides, it does not appear from experiment that bees 



