d 
104 Transactions.— Miscellaneous. 
First, Mr. Davies writes of * the enharmonie scale of the ancient 
Greeks" (which has long been lost, and which, indeed, has been disputed), 
that “it consisted of a quarter-tone, a quarter-tone and an interval of two 
tones, an interval somewhat greater than our third major;" and that this 
long-lost ancient scale has been found to exist among the Arabians, the 
Chinese, and the New Zealanders. 
* As the highest art is to conceal the art and to imitate nature, that 
mighty nation the Greeks, with an art almost peculiarly their own, having 
observed these expressions of natural sentiment," stated fully in the pre- 
ceding paragraph, * thence deduced certain laws of interval, by which, 
while they kept within thelimits of art, they took care not to transgress 
those of nature, but judiciously to adopt, and as nearly as possible to define, 
with mathematical exactness, those intervals which the uncultured only 
approach by the irregular modulation of natural impulses. *  * * 
Hence, I conceive the reason of the remnant of that scale being found 
among most of those nations who have been left to the impulses of a * nature- 
taught’ song rather than been cramped by the trammels of a conventional 
system—the result of education and of civilization." 
“ Plutarch remarks, that the most beautiful of the musical genera is the 
enharmonie, on account of its grave and solemn character, and that it was 
formerly most in esteem. Aristides Quintilian tells us it was the most diffi- 
cult of all, and required a most excellent ear.  Aristoxenus observes that it 
was so difficult that no one could sing more than two dieses consecutively, 
and yet the perceptions of a Greek audienee were fully awake to, and their 
judgment could appreciate, a want of exactness in execution." 
“ Mr. Lay Tradescant, speaking of the Chinese intervals, says that ‘it 
is impossible to obtain the intervals of their scale on our keyed instruments, 
but they may be perfectly effected on the violin; * * * and our own 
ears attest that, universally, in the modulations of the voice of the so-called 
savage tribes, and in the refined and anomalously studied Chinese, there 
are intervals which do not correspond to any notes on our keyed instru- 
ments, and which to an untrained ear appear almost monotonous." 
** Suffice it to say that many Chinese airs, of which I have two, show the 
diesie modulation and the saltus combined; but the majority of the New 
Zealand airs which I have heard are softer and more ‘ligate,’ and have a 
great predominance of the diesic element.” 
** One thing, however, is certain, that, as Aristoxenus tell us, no perfect 
ear could modulate more than two dieses at a time, and then there was a 
* saltus ' or interval of two tones, and as the New Zealand songs frequently 
exhibit more than two close intervals together, it is more than probable that 
many of these songs are a chromatic,” 
