G38 



TOMBECKBEE TONE- 



surpassing talent. Sec Sarcophagu* . also Lea 

 Monument de la Monarchic 1'mm-aise, by Mont fan- 

 con ; Les Antiquitis Nationalcs, by A. L. Millin 

 (5 vols., folio, or 5 vols., 4to.) ; Sepulchral Monu- 

 ments (3 vols., folio), &c. &c. 



TOMBECKBEE, the western branch of Mobile 

 river, in Alabama, rises in the ridges that separate 

 it> waters and those of the Tennessee, in the north- 

 ern parts of the state, and receives some of its 

 branches from a range that diverges from the Te- 

 nessee hills, and runs south along the state of Mis- 

 sissippi. It receives in its progress several consi- 

 derable streams from the state of Mississippi on the 

 west side. It meanders through the Indian country 

 and a tract purchased by French immigrants. Eighty 

 miles above St Stephens, it receives the Black 

 Warrior, to which place small sea vessels ascend. 

 In moderate stages of the water, it affords steam- 

 boat navigation to Tuscaloosa, 320 miles from Mo- 

 bile. The lands on its banks are exceedingly fertile. 

 TOMBUCTOO. See Timbuctoo. 

 TOMCOD. See Cod. 



TOMSK; a government of Russia, in Siberia, 

 bounded north by Yeniseisk, east by Irkutsk, south 

 by Chinese Tartary, and west by Tobolsk ; popu- 

 lation, 352,000 ; square miles, 300,000. (See Si- 

 beria.) The capital, of the same name, is situated 

 on the Tom, 540 miles east of Tobolsk ; Ion. 85 C 

 21' E.; lat. 56 30' N.; population, 12,000. It 

 contains five churches and two convents, is ex- 

 tremely well situated for commerce, and the inhab- 

 itants carry on a considerable trade. It lies in the 

 road from the towns in the eastern and northern 

 parts of Siberia, and on the great line of rivers that 

 connect Tobolsk with the Chinese frontier ; so that 

 all caravans going to and from China pass every 

 year through this town, besides a caravan or two 

 going from the country of the Calmucks. Tomsk 

 is represented as much behind Tobolsk and Irkutsk 

 in civilization, and the inhabitants are excessively 

 addicted to intoxication. 



TONE (Greek TO,-, from TMV, to stretch or 

 expand), in painting ; a term used chiefly in colour- 

 ing, to express the prevailing hue. Thus we say, 

 this picture is of a dull tone, of a lively tone, of a 

 soft tone, of a clear tone, &c. To heighten the tone 

 of a work, is to render the colours more vivid, and, 

 in some instances, the masses more decided and the 

 figures more striking. The word tone, in relation 

 to chiaro-scuro, expresses the degree of brightness 

 or intensity. Tone is not precisely synonymous 

 with tint ; the latter relating rather to the mixture 

 of colours, and the former to their effect. 



TONE, KEY, SCALE, SYSTEM OF TONES. 

 Tone, in music, signifies a sound considered in the 

 relations of height or depth ; also each particular 

 sound in our musical system. The tone, in this 

 fundamental sense, is determined by the greater or 

 less quickness of a uniform series of vibrations in a 

 sonorous body. Musical tones differ from those of 

 common speech chiefly by being more prolonged, so 

 as to give the ear a more decided perception of their 

 height, formation, and relations to each other. (For 

 the production and propagation of sounds, in gene- 

 ral, see Acoustics.') The difference of one tone 

 from another, in respect to height or depth, forms 

 the interval. But as music deals only with those 

 which are capable of producing harmony, the whole 

 body of sounds used in music has been brought into 

 a system, which exhibits their different height and 

 depth in regular order. The compass of tones is 

 not indefinite, because the ear is unable to perceive 



a tone, when the vibrations of the bol\ producing 

 ' the sound arc either excessively quick or slow: Ml 

 ; they are not limited to a definite- number. This 

 measured series of tones is an invention of modern 

 times, since the nature of sounds has been areu- 

 rately investigated, and their relations settled by 

 musical instruments. Man in a state of nature, or 

 a state but little removed from this, is guided only 

 by his feelings, in the production of tones, and know s 

 nothing of a regulated arrangement; hence it is so 

 difficult to adapt the songs of savages to our diato- 

 nie system. As instruments do not, like the human 

 voice, produce all the various tones without parti- 

 cular contrivances, those who first endeavoured to 

 produce a certain tune by means of instruments, 

 were obliged to assign to them, as it were, certain 

 tones, and arrange these in regular order ; strings 

 were to be tuned in a certain way, for producing 

 certain sounds; a distinct length was to be given 

 to them, and holes were to be made at certain dis- 

 tances in wind instruments. The relations of tones 

 first perceived by the ear, were undoubtedly those 

 which were thus fixed. Thus the fable says, that. 

 Hermes strung the lyre with four strings, and 

 tuned them in the proportion of the fourth, fifth, 

 and octave; and, probably, these tones were ptifli- 

 cient for the simplest accompaniment of the voice. 

 By degrees the other tones of the octave were added. 

 In this first system, which embraced four strings or 

 tones, were comprehended two-fourths, forming the 

 two extreme tones, as, a d e a : the lowest tone 

 was called A. Hence this system, or the division 

 of tones according to fourths, is called tetrachord. 

 When the tones were increased in number, it seems 

 to have been done also by fourths ; so that, e. g. to 

 the chord d the fourth g was given, and to e 

 (descending) the fourth b. Now g had not yet its 

 pure fourth ; but in order not to go beyond the oc- 

 tave, the same was taken within the octave from g 

 downward ; this received the fourth f, and thus the 

 whole octave was formed, or a series of tones, ex- 

 tending from a, fundamental tone, to its octave, 

 which is called the scale. The scale thus formed 

 consisted of the tones 



ABCDEFGa 



which had the proportions 



1 8 27 3 2 81 9 1 

 9 32 4 3 126 16 2 



When the fourths were divided, in different ways, 

 into smaller intervals, the genera of tones originated, 

 viz. 1. The enharmonic; 2. the chromatic; 3. the 

 diatonic, in which whole and half degrees alone ap- 

 pear. The modern diatonic system is that division 

 of tones according to which the octave is divided 

 into seven tones, consisting of five entire and two 

 half degrees (also called tones ; hence tone often 

 stands for the interval of a whole tone), and in 

 which we never proceed by smaller divisions than 

 semitones, nor ever by two successive semitones. 

 Now, as the ancients had not adopted the semitones 

 , d$, f Jf , g$, into their system, and the scale or 

 progressive series of eight tones in the octave 

 (which, ascending from the fundamental tone, are 

 designated by numbers, as the second, third, &c.), 

 was probably as follows : 



CDEFGAbBc, 

 since the seventh degree had a double tone, small 

 and great B (the latter of which was afterwards 

 changed by mistake into H, in the German nota- 

 tion), they thus adopted two chief classes or modes 

 of sounds, the sharp and the fat. (These terms 



