55° 



NATURE 



[April cl, 1 8 8c 



surely, if the transition state of the Government excused inaction 

 on its part, the Geographical Society could have organised a 

 meeting, even although a prince was not at hand to take the 

 chair. Possibly after all our insular want of sympathy with 

 foreign enterprise, however great, may account for the absence 

 of that enthusiasm which greeted our own abortive expedition 

 of three years ago. The English edition of Prof. Nordenskjbld's 

 narrative will be published by Macmillan and Co. ; it will 

 appear simultaneously in English, Swedish, German, and French. 



M. J. Palmarts has published at Brussels a pamphlet entitled 

 " Projet d' Exploration au Pole Nord," in which, after a pre- 

 liminary disquisition of a general nature, he expounds his plan 

 for the construction of a submarine apparatus to attain the object 

 in view. Tlie Times Naples correspondent states that the 

 Crisioforo Colombo is now in course of preparation for an 

 exploring voyage in tb.2 North Seas. 



The current number of the Geographical Society's Proceedings 

 contains Mr. J. Thomson's report of his journey from the 

 head of Lake Nyas-a to the south end of Lake Tanganyika, 

 followed by Maj.-Gen. Sir M. A. S. Biddulph's paper on 

 Pishin, and the routes between India and Candahar, which 

 furnishes a vast amount of new topographical information. In 

 order to make this more readily intelligible, it is illustrated by 

 some excellent wood-engravings from, we believe, the author's 

 own sketches, and a gocd map of part of southern Afghanistan, 

 constructed from surveys made during the late expedition, on 

 which the unexplored country to the east is usefully indicated. 

 A proposal is made by Admiral Ryder to found medals for the 

 encouragement of surveying by naval officers, which the council 

 of the Society, after careful consideration, think had better be 

 placed in other hands. Among the remaining matter is Dr. 

 Holub's address on the subject of the Marutse-Mabunda empire, 

 but the publication of the map to illustrate his former paper 

 appears to be unavoidably postponed. 



It is stated that a new Belgian expedition is to leave this 

 month for the purpose of establishing commercial stations along 

 the Congo. 



M. Slatin, an Austrian traveller, is about to vi it Dara, in 

 I)arfur, and proposes to explore the country to the south of 

 Hofrat-el-Nahas and Kalaka. MM. de Muller-Capitany and de 

 Lucken have recently left Cairo for Massowah, whence they 

 intend to visit the region bordering on Northern Abyssinia. 

 After spending a year there they will direct their course to 

 Fazokl, by way of Valkait and Gallabat, and they will then 

 endeavour to penetrate southwards into the Galla country. 



MM. Popelin and Carter, with the second Belgian Expedi- 

 tion, have arrived at Karema, M. Cambier's station on Lake 

 Tanganyika, but it is said that only one elephant has survived 

 the journey. Under the auspices of the King of the Belgians an 

 establishment is to be formed in Eastern Africa for the capture 

 and training of elephants. A further Belgian expedition is to be 

 despatched to Karema under Capt. Raemaekers and his brother, 

 who will take with them three artisans and also a small steamer 

 for use on Lake Tanganyika. 



The French Committee of the International African Associa- 

 tion have despatched M. Bloyet to Zanzibar to undertake the 

 formation of their station in Usagara. 



Col. Gordon-Pasha has recently informed the Church Mis- 

 sionary Society that the Egyptian military station on the Uganda 

 frontier had been moved back, and that consequently the country 

 between Egypt and Mtesa's kingdom is in an unsettled and 

 insecure state, being overrun by Kaba Rega's men. The road to 

 the Victoria Nyanza by way of the Nile is therefore not now 

 practicable. The two members of the Nyanza Expedition, the 

 Rev. C I. Wilson and Mr. Felkin, with three Waganda chiefs, 

 are expected to arrive in England during the present month, as 

 they had reached Suakim on March 16. Mr. Wilson will thus 

 be the first Englishman, since Speke and Grant, who has 

 traversed Africa from Zanzibar to Uganda, and thence down the 

 Nile. 



Herr Carl Lamp gives some striking illustrations in Globus 

 of the hatred that exists between the Mayos of Yucatan and 

 the Mexican Creoles. He shows how important the exploration 

 of the country would be, but the explorer must take his life in 

 his hand. The same number (13) of Globus contains some 

 interesting details of Mr. C. M. Doughty's journeys in North 

 Arabia. 



The leading contribution to the new number of the Annate 

 de VExtrtme Orient is Count Meyners d'Estrey's paper on 

 Sumatra, being a communication recently made by him to the 

 Societe Academique Indo-Chinoise. 



The new part of Le Globe contains a suggestive paper on the 

 rSle of missionaries, looked at from a geographical standpoint. 



On the 16th inst. Prof. Vambery is to read a paper at the 

 Society of Arts on " Russia's Influence over the Inhabitants of 

 Central Asia during the last ten years." Prof. Vambery's 

 intimate knowledge of Central Asia lends greit value to anything 

 he may say, though it is well known his opinions are rather 

 violently anti-Russian. He is coming to London expressly to 

 read the paper, and is expected here on the 13th. Sir Douglas 

 Forsyth is announced to preside at the meeting. 



According to an evening contemporary the Moscow corre 

 spondent of the Kblnische Zeituno writes that a war between 

 Russia and China may result in the occupation of Tchikislar, 

 and that the fanatical Mahommedan population of Tchikislar is 

 the surest ally for Russia ! At first sight this was rather 

 confusing, but the further statement that Russia " has a pre- 

 tender for Tchikislar in fttto — an elder son of Vakoob Khan," 

 inclines us to the belief that the writer may not impossibly be 

 confounding Kashgar with Tchikislar ! 



THE HISTORY OF MUSICAL PITCH 1 



" T5ITCII" is itself merely a sensation clue to, and hence 

 -*■ measured by, the number of double or complete vibra- 

 tions, backwards and forwards, made in one second of time by 

 a particle of air while the sound is heard. It is convenient to 

 call the pitch of a musical sound the number of vibrations to 

 which it is due. "Musical pitch "is the pitch of the " tuning 

 note," or that by which all other notes on an instrument with 

 fixed tones is regulated according to some system of tuning or 

 " temperament." Of these, two are of prominent importance in 

 the history of pitch, the "Mean-tone" and the "Equal," the 

 first being also frequently called " unequal." In mean-tone 

 temperament, completed by Salinas in 1577, all harpsichords 

 and pianos were originally tuned in England till 1844, and all 

 organs till 1S54. It may still be heard on Green's organs at 

 St. George's Chapel, Windsor, Kew Parish Church, and St. 

 Katharine's, Regent's Park, and on a few country organs. It 

 consists in flattening the Fifths of the scale sufficiently to make 

 the major Thirds peifect, so as to sound without beats. As lor.g 

 as the player did not employ more than two flats or three sharps 

 this answered very well indeed. But on introducing a third flat 

 or fourth sharp he had to play them by substitution, and hideous 

 noises, called " the wolf," were produced, and hence players have 

 agreed to accept the much less perfect equal temperament, in 

 which the Fifths are scarcely perceptibly flattened, and the 

 major Thirds are made very much too sharp (producing the 

 unpleasant "grittiness" of the harmonium), because at any rate 

 all the keys are alike and the wolves are reduced to cubs. 



It is convenient to consider A as the tuning note in all cases, 

 but pianos and organs are usually tuned to C. The following 

 relations give an easy sum in the rule of three for passing from 

 A to C, and conversely. In equal temperament A 444, that is, 

 the note A making 444 double vibrations in a second, corre- 

 sponds to C 528, and conversely. In mean-tone temperament 

 A 41S corresponds to C 500, and conversely, whereas for a per- 

 fect minor Thii d between A and C, A 440 corresponds to C 52S, 

 ar.d conversely. 



Man's memory of pitch is generally weak and 'short, though 

 there are a few exceptions. Even in running down an octave 

 unaccompanied singers will often flatten pitch. Hence some 

 means of handing down pitch is necessary. The only carriers of 

 pitch which need be noticed are the organ-pipe and the tuning- 

 fork, which dates from 1711, so that for all older pitches* the 

 organ-pipe is the sole, as it still is the principal, authority. Both 

 pipe and fork alter with temperature. The pipe alters, roughly 

 speaking 1 , by one vibration in every thousand for each degree 

 I ahrenheit, sharpening by heat and flattening by cold. This is 

 an extremely important change, and all pitches of organs must 

 be reduced to one standard temperature, for which 59° F. = 



1 Re-arranged and abridged by the Authr from a paper ( 



, the 



sub- 



ject read before the Society of Arts on March 3, 1880. by Alexander J. 

 Ellis, F.R.S., F.S.A. For a detailed authentication of the facts herein 

 mentioned reference must be made to the Journal of the Society of Alts for 

 March 5 and April 2, 1880. 



