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tiiictly, especially if quick dactyls were chosen. The 

 last syllables of 



" Tityre, tu patulae recubans." . . . 



were as audibly and intelligibly returned as the flrst : 

 and there is no doubt, could trial have been made, but 

 that at midnight, when the air is very elastic, and a dead 

 stillness prevails, one or two syllables more might have 

 been obtained ; but the distance rendered so late an 

 experiment very inconvenient. 



Quick dactyls, we observed, succeeded best ; for when 

 we came to try its powers in slow, heavy, embarrassed 

 spondees of the same number of syllables, 



" Monstmm horrendum, inlorme, ingens." . . . 



we could perceive a return but of four or five. 



All echoes have some one place to which they are 

 returned stronger and more distinct than to any other ; 

 and that is always the place that lies at right angles with 

 the object of repercussion, and is not too near, nor too 

 far oif. Buildings, or naked rocks, re-echo much more 

 articulately than hanging wood or vales ; because in the 

 latter the voice is as it were entangled, and embarrassed 

 in the covert, and weakened in the rebound. 



The true object of this echo, as we found by various 

 experiments, is the stone-built, tiled hop-kiln in GaUey- 

 lane, which measures in front 40 feet, and from the 

 ground to the eaves 12 feet. The true centrum phonicum, 

 or just distance, is one particular spot in the King's- 

 field, in the path to Nore-hill, on the very brink of the 

 steep balk above the hollow cart-way. In this case 

 there is no choice of distance ; but the path, by mere 

 contingency, happens to be the lucky, the identical spot, 

 because the ground rises or falls so immediately, if the 



