The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. Volume 17, No. 482, March 26, 1831Various
General
The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. Volume 17, No. 482, March 26, 1831
Various
Popular literature -- Great Britain -- Periodicals
Various remarkable echoes, and some not very credible, have been
described by different authors. Dr. Plott mentions an echo in Woodstock
Park, which repeats seventeen syllables by day and twenty by night.
The famous echo at the Marquess Simonetta's villa, near Milan, has been
described both by Addison and Keysler. According to the last of these
travellers, it is occasioned by the reflection of the voice between the
opposite parallel wings of the building, which are fifty-eight paces
from each other, without any windows or doors, and perpendicularly
to the main body of the building. The repetition of the sound dwells
chiefly on the last syllable. A man's voice is repeated about forty
times, and the report of a pistol about sixty times; but the repetitions
are so rapid, that it is difficult to number them, unless it be early in
the morning, or in a calm, still evening.
A curious example of an oblique echo, not heard by the person who emits
the sound, is described in the "Memoirs of the Academy of Sciences" as
existing at Genefay, near Rouen. A person singing hears only his own
direct voice, while those who listen hear only the echo, which sometimes
seems to approach, and at other times to recede from, the ear; one
person hears a single voice, another several voices; one hears the echo
on the right, and another on the left--the effect constantly changing
with the position of the observer.
One of the most remarkable echoes of which we have read is that which
Dr. Birch describes as existing at Roseneath, in Argyllshire. When a
person at a proper distance played eight or ten notes on a trumpet, they
were correctly repeated, but a third lower; after a short silence,
another repetition was heard in a yet lower tone, and alter another
short interval, they were repeated a third time in a tone lower still.
We extract the following account of two very interesting echoes from Mr.
Herschell's work:--
"In the cathedral of Girgenti, in Sicily, the slightest whisper is borne
with perfect distinctness from the great western door to the cornice
behind the high altar, a distance of 250 feet. By a most unlucky
coincidence, the precise focus of divergence at the former station was
chosen for the place of the confessional. Secrets never intended for the
public ear thus became known, to the dismay of the confessors and the
scandal of the people, by the resort of the curious to the opposite
point (which seems to have been discovered accidentally), till at length
one listener, having had his curiosity somewhat overgratified by hearing
his wife's avowal of her own infidelity, this tell-tale peculiarity
became generally known, and the confessional was removed.[2]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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