Miscellanies. 175 



always some harmonic tones of the original note, there is a strong anal- 

 ogy to the polarization of light and heat. The actual condition of the 

 vibrations is evidently as follows. A portion of them must be transmit- 

 ted or conducted by the reflecting surfaces, and the reflected portion pos- 

 sesses new and definite properties. I leave the fact in the hands of theo- 

 retical philosophers. 



IT. Echo, many times repeating. 



The communciation of Dr. Page, reminded us of a surprising echo 

 between two barns on the estate of Philip Church, Esq., at Belvidere, Al- 

 leghany County, New York. 



With this echo we are personally familiar, and its delightful and aston- 

 ishing reiterations have often held the hearers in admiration, of what we 

 believe is no where surpassed in the number and distinctness of the rep- 

 etitions. Their delicacy and distinctness, but not their number, are finely 

 exhibited among the mountains of Lake George, while the wide sweeping 

 echo, circling miles around, when a powerful horn is blown, or a cannon 

 is discharged among the White Mountains of New Hampshire, has some- 

 thing of the terrible and sublime, as in both these cases we have had oc- 

 casion to observe. 



For the following notice, vi^e are indebted to John B. Church, Esq. 

 —Eds. 



The echo repeats eleven times, a word of either one, two or three syl- 

 lables ; the sound at each successive repetition, gradually dies away, but 

 the echo retains its distinct articulation to the last; in a very favorable 

 state of the atmosphere, it has been heard to repeat thirteen times. 



The barns stand nearly in a direct line, east and west, with their gable 

 ends towards each other. The echo sounds in the direction of the barn 

 opposite to the one at which you stand, and it sounds equally well from 

 either barn. 



By placing yourself in the centre between the two barns, there will be 

 a double echo, one in the direction of each barn, and a monosyllable will 

 thus be repeated twenty-two times, but in such rapid succession as to ren- 

 der it difficult to count the repetitions. 



At the same time with the repetitions in the direct line of the barns, 

 there is a lateral echo, which gives but one reverberation, indistinct, but 

 loud and apparently rolling along the amphitheatre of hills. 



East and west from the barns are ranges of hills that skirt the opposite 

 banks of the Genesee river, distant from each other about one and half 

 mile, the barns are about half way between them, the range of hills on 

 the last, sweep in a bow around towards the N. W., till nearly opposite 

 the barns, whence they bear off north, approaching at the nearest point 

 in their course, to within fifty yards of the barns. 



The hills, east and west from the barns, rise up rather abruptly from 

 the plain, but with a smooth and unbroken ascent ; and although the 



