174 
LEA TO LAS 
LF¥une 25, 1885 
can corroborate the fact as regards the valley of Lake Leman, in 
Switzerland. At Geneva, a newspaper has described the 
abnormal crepuscular glows of June 2, 3, 4, and 13. At Morges 
(46° 30’ N. lat.), Prof. C. H. Dufour and myself have observed 
them on the 12th and 13th. 
On the 12th the sun disappeared beyond the Jura range about 
7h. 3om. p.m.; at 8h. rom. my attention was called by the 
brilliant illumination of a strange pale yellow, the same which 
in December, 1883, and January, 1884, always foretold the 
great crepuscular glows; at gh. the western sky was coloured 
by brilliant purple red tints, which spread as high as the zenith ; 
the red colour only vanished from the horizon at 9h. 30m.—7.e. 
two full hours after sunset. The successive phases of the phe- 
nomenon were the same asin the winter 1883-1884 ; the brilliancy 
of the colours was, however, fainter, but they were, perhaps, of 
greater duration. 
On the 13th the same glows were observed, with decreasing 
intensity ; on the following days nothing extraordinary has been 
noticed, F. A. ForEL 
Morges, Switzerland, June 21 
THE INTERNATIONAL EX HIBITION—MUSIC 
LOAN COELECTION! 
eee story runs that a countryman, visiting London 
for the first time, and feeling bound to see West- 
minster Abbey, by a slight mistake overlooked the Royal 
Fane, and attended service in St. Margaret’s Church hard by. 
He told his friends in the shires on coming home that the 
ancient edifice was sadly overrated. Exactly a parallel 
case to this has just occurred to the writer of the present 
lines. He was informed by an unknown friend that the 
small collection of unlabelled instruments in the basement 
of the Albert Hall was unworthy of the occasion ; and he 
only made out on close inquiry that the person in question 
was speaking of one out of the two “overflow rooms” in 
which the superabundant stores of the Loan Collection 
are housed, and had never seen the Loan Collection itself 
at all. This was the more remarkable as the said indi- 
vidual carried the proof-sheets of his guide-book to the 
Inventories which he was in the act of sending to the 
printers. It is therefore clearly not superfluous to state 
that this, probably the grandest and most complete illus- 
tration of the history, progress, and development of music 
ever furnished, occupies the whole of the circular gallery 
which forms the top storey of Capt. Fowke’s gigantic 
building, and runs over into two large rooms at a lower 
level. 
It is impossible in a short preliminary notice to do more 
than call early attention to the vast mass of priceless mate- 
rials here collected, and soon to be again dispersed ; nor 
can sufficient credit be accorded to Mr. Alfred Maskell, who, 
aided by his learned father, has been mainly instrumental 
in arranging and bringing it into order. He has been 
seconded signally by Mr. Hipkins, representing the old 
and honoured firm of Broadwood and Sons, so that the 
collection of ancient spinetts, virginals, clavichords, harpsi- 
chords, and the like is the most remarkable ever brought 
together. There is at least one such instrument lent by 
its noble owner from his family seat in Ireland which is 
all but unknown even to connoisseurs. 
The Belgian Government have most liberally lent the 
whole of the grand museum of the Brussels Conserva- 
toire of Music, originally presented to that institution by 
M. Victor Mahillon. This in itself is a “ Syntagima 
Musicum,” like the scarce work of Preetorius, but pre- 
senting the very things themselves, not merely their graven 
images. 
The realism of the exhibit is carried to the highest 
degree by three beautiful model rooms, designed with the 
taste and accuracy for which Mr. Davidson, himself an 
exhibitor of some grand fiddles, is so justly noted, each 
room showing furniture, decoration, and instruments of a 
* We hope to supplement this preliminary note by a more detailed notice 
of the collection when it is complete and the Catalogue ready.—Ep, 
great epoch in musical history. The visitor can, if he 
choose, yield to the pleasant illusion and revel in the 
madrigals of Orlando di Lasso, “J? pid dolce cigno 
@’Ttaléa,” the motetts of the Elizabethan age, the Lulli- 
inspired melodies of Purcell; or sit at the clavichord 
with Handel and grand old John Sebastian Bach. Of its 
kind the thing is as nearly perfect as can be, and the 
undersigned takes the first possible opportunity of praying 
his brother and sister amateurs not to let slip the unique 
privilege of seeing it. 
W. H. STONE 
THE MEASURE OF FIDGET 
ATTERLY—no matter where—I was present at a 
crowded and expectant meeting. The communica- 
tion proved tedious, and I could not hear much of it, so 
from my position at the back of the platform I studied 
the expressions and gestures of the bored audience. 
The feature that an instantaneous photograph, taken at 
any moment, would have most prominently displayed was 
the unequal horizontal interspace between head and 
head. When the audience is intent each person forgets 
his muscular weariness and skin discomfort, and he holds 
himself rigidly in the best position for seeing and hearing. 
As this is practically identical for persons who sit side by 
side, their bodies are parallel, and again, as they sit at 
much the same distances apart, their heads are corre- 
sponding]; equidistant. But when the audience is bored 
the several individuals cease to forget themselves and they 
begin to pay much attention to the discomforts attendant 
on sitting long in the same position. They sway from 
side to side, each in his own way, and the intervals 
between their faces, which lie at the free end of the radius 
formed by their bodies, with their seat as the centre of rota- 
tion varies greatly. I endeavoured to give numerical ex- 
pression for this variability of distance, but for the present 
have failed. I was, however, perfectly successful in 
respect to another sign of mutiny against constraint, inas- 
much as I found myself able to estimate the frequency of 
fidget with much precision. It happened that the hall 
was semicircularly disposed and that small columns under 
the gallery were convenient as points of reference. From 
where I sat, 50 persons were included in each sector of 
which my eye formed the apex and any adjacent pair of 
columns the boundaries. I watched most of these sec- 
tions in turn, some of them repeatedly, and counted 
the number of distinct movements among the persons 
they severally contained. It was curiously uniform, and 
about 45 per minute. As the sectors were rather too long 
for the eye to surely cover at a glance, I undoubtedly 
missed some movements on every occasion. Partly on 
this account and partly for the convenience of using round 
numbers I will accept 50 movements per minute among 
50 persons, or an average of I movement per minute in 
each person, as nearly representing the true state of the 
case. The audience was mostly elderly ; the young would 
have been more mobile. Circumstances now and then 
occurred that roused the audience to temporary attention, 
and the effect was twofold. First, the frequency of fidget 
diminished rather more than half ; second, the amplitude 
and period of each movement were notably reduced. The 
swayings of head, trunk, and arms had before been wide 
and sluggish, and when rolling from side to side the indi- 
viduals seemed to “yaw”; that is to say, they lingered 
in extreme positions. Whenever they became intent this 
peculiarity disappeared, and they performed their fidgets 
smartly. Let me suggest to observant philosophers when 
the meetings they attend may prove dull, to occupy them- 
selves in estimating the frequency, amplitude, and dura- 
tion of the fidgets of their fellow-sufferers. They must 
do so during periods both of intentness and of indiffer- 
ence, so as to eliminate what may be styled “natural 
fidget,” and then I think they may acquire the new art of 
