1919.] New Zealand Institute Science Congress. 327 
beats in music. Zarlino, an old writer on music, makes this statement, 
which is said to be fully corroborated by other early writers. Kuskin 
reckoned two paces as the average taken in a second, concluding from this 
that the proper length of the spondee, a Greek foot containing two long 
syllables, was one second ; and on this basis he reckoned the time of 
various feet, which might, under varying conditions, be quickened or delayed. 
Thus he took the walking-pace instead of the heart-beat as the primary 
basis of metre. His average pace, however, is too fast ; two in a second, 
or 120 in a minute, is the speed of the “ storming march,” the “ quick 
march ” being about 108. The average heart-beat being slightly over 
70 pulsations to the minute—72 is the exact number—and ordinary march 
time taking about 75 steps to the minute, it would certainly appear that 
there was some connection between the two. Possibly the pace regulated 
the metre—that is, when dance accompanied the poetry ; but even then 
it is a question if the pace was not regulated by the heart-beat. In 
orchestral march music, more especially in military music, the drum plays 
an important part ; and its pulsations may be imagined as the heart-beat 
made audible. 
Next to the stress-unit, the smallest uniform aggregation of parts is 
the verse. This normally contains eight stress-units, or their temporal 
equivalent, and is usually divided, when printed, into at least two equal 
parts. Each part of a verse so divided is commonly known as a line. 
From a casual examination of poetry, the length of the line—that is, the 
number of its stress-units—would appear to be quite arbitrary. It would 
appear that it rests with the poet himself to decide whether a line should 
contain one stress-unit only or include the whole verse. Whilst the length 
of the line is thus under his complete control, it is otherwise with the length 
of the verse. The length of the verse has been determined by a natural 
law, and the poet in dividing it into lines instinctively sees that the total 
lines into which any sentence is divided make a complete verse. The 
length of the line may range from one two-syllabled unit to eight three- 
syllabled units. The line divisions, when made, are usually marked with 
rime. Thus Herrick divides the full verse 
Thus I 
Pass by 
And die : 
As one 
Unknown 
And gone 
into six lines, each containing a single stress-unit. It will be noted that 
the full verse appears to have only six stress-units instead of the normal 
eight; but it will also be noticed that there is a pause after the third unit, 
a pause taking the place of a unit that has been dropped. A similar pause 
takes the place of the eighth unit. Tennyson, on the other hand, writes 
as one line the full verse 
Fame blowing out from her golden trumpet a jubilant challenge to Time 
and to Fate. 
There seems at first to be little similarity between these two verses ; yet 
they are built on the same eight-unit basis. The poet may, of course, 
print the verse how he pleases ; so that whilst Coleridge prints in two lines 
the verse 
The fair breeze blew, the white foam flew, 
The furrow followed free 
