only one equal temperament, but there are as many unequal temperaments as we please.

The temperament according to which I tuned a harp was nearly the equal. Since reading Mr. Smyth's Reply, I have endeavoured to tune that system on a piano-forte, by the melody alone, striking the finger-keys singly, and in a gradual succession only. I have tried the experiment but once. Twenty-four sounds, near the middle of the general scale of the instrument, were so tuned within fifteen minutes, in the presence of two experienced tuners, who afterwards compared the sounds in one octave with the sounds of a monochord having a scale divided decimally, and found the corresponding lengths of the wire to be as follow:

C 1000, C 939, D 886, D836, E793, F749, F*704, G 661, G 628, A 596, A*559, and B 530; while those of the equal temperament are nearly, C 1000, C✩944, D 891, D 841, E794, F750, F*707, G 667, G*630, A 595, A 56-1, and B 530*.

I have no doubt but that, with practice, it would be possible to tune any system in the same manner, were it

necessary.

Dr. Bemetzrieder, in his silly and useless directions for tuning, says, that the interval called a "coma (comma f) is the smallest space perceptible by the ear, any thing less is not in its reach." p. 3. I believe, however, that the utmost degree of accuracy of this organ has never yet been determined.

I feel obliged to Mr. Smyth for having, in compliance with my request, given a Table of Beats of the Mean Tone Temperament. Tables of beats furnish the most certain. means of tuning any system ou the organ, if adapted to the pitch of the instrument; but for instruments with wires, they are, perhaps, entirely useless.

The extract from Dr. Burney's History I consider as the least praiseworthy part of Mr. Smyth's Reply. First, it was quite unnecessary, because I did not refer to Eximino's works, but gave his words; merely as an exposition of opinions common with some tuners: Secondly, it was

* D'Alembert, speaking of the equal temperament, preferred by Rameau, says, "Si dans le temperament ordinaire on rencontre des tierces moins alterées que dans celui de M. Rameau, en récompense les quints y sont beaucoup plus fausses, et plusieurs tierces le sont aussi; de manière que sur un clavecin accordé par le temperament ordinaire, il y a cinq ou six modes insupportables, et dans lesquels on ne peut rien exécuter." p. 56. Elemens de Musique. Lyon, 1779.

Vol. 37. No. 154. Feb. 1811.

H

not

not impartial; and it may be fairly supposed that he intended to influence those "who to the fascination of a name surrender judgement hood-winked."

I am unacquainted with the Doctor's reasons for giving the term whimsical as a translation of bello. He goes.on to say, "The author (Eximino) has certainly with shrewdness and accuracy started several difficulties, and pointed out imperfections in the theory and practice of music, as well as in the particular theories of Tartini and Rameau. vol. iv. Dr. Matthew Young also, in his Inquiry into the Phænomena of Sounds and Musical Strings, refers to Eximeno, and calls this work of his, Delle Origine e delle Regole della Musica, an excellent and admirable treatise. But what has all this to do with the subject of tuning?I should not have turned from the author's thoughts to search into his general character, if Mr. Smyth had not led the way, and rendered it on my part necessary.

It was my intention to offer a few remarks on Mr. Marsh's Harmonics, (1810.) and on the utility and application of the term wolf; but on a second consideration, they do not appear to me of sufficient importance for insertion in the Philosophical Magazine.

A. MERRICK.

XXI. On Oriental Bezoars. By M. BERTHOLLET *. BEZOARS, according to Kampfer, were so dear even in Persia, that he did not think a real one ever came to Europe: most of those which are brought are artificial, and some are formed of small fragments of real bezoar joined together by some artful process. I was fortunate enough to examine these concretions under circumstances which admit of no doubt as to their being genuine. Among the presents sent to the emperor Napoleon, by the king of Persia, were three bezoars, which were given to me for the purpose of being analysed. The following was the result of my experiments.

These bezoars were dark-green externally, and brown internally they were of an oval form, and had a very smooth surface: they were formed of irregular concentric layers: within one of them were found some bits of straw and other vegetable substances, which formed as it were an oval nucleus, a little separated from the external envelope which was nearly two centimetres (inc.) thick: another formed a com

*Mem. d'Arcueil, tome ii.

p.

448.

pound

pound mass of layers, among which was a splinter of wood of the size of a common pin: a homogeneous piece was of the specific gravity of 1463, that of water being 1000*.

The bezoar when reduced to very fine powder yields nothing to water in which it has been boiled for a long time: the water, however, was a little greenish, but had no sensible taste. The re-agents did not manifest the presence of any of the substances the existence of which might have been suspected: when evaporated to dryness it yielded scarcely any residue.

Alcohol which was boiled for a long time with bezoar powder also assumed a slight green colour; it was not disturbed by the addition of water: when evaporated to dryness it did not leave any appreciable residue.

Muriatic acid, concentrated in a middling degree, did not act perceptibly upon bezoar; but the concentric nitric acid dissolved it with a brisk effervescence: it assumed an orange-red colour; but we found no oxalic acid in this solution, and we could not extract from it any yellow bitter

matter.

Potash easily dissolved bezoar powder: the solution was of a deep brown colour, and the muriatic acid precipitated from it the substance of the bezoar without its undergoing any apparent alteration.

We distilled over a graduated fire twelve grammes of bezoar reduced into fine powder; then passed into the receiver a small quantity of a yellow substance, part of which was sublimed, and the other part was covered with a little liquid, on which some drops of oil floated: the liquid gave indications of acidity, and resembled a weak pyrolignous acid lime extricated from it ammoniacal vapours, but they were scarcely perceptible.

When we put bezoar on burning coals, it burns, but gives out very little flame: there rises, on the part furthest removed from the coals, a little yellow matter: when we expose bezoar in powder in a small platina spoon to the action of the blow-pipe, it burns briskly, but without flame, and around it this yellow matter is formed, which when afterwards exposed to the flame is charred and burnt. It seems, therefore, that the yellow matter is only a portion of the bezoar not much altered, which is sublimed; and which, when again exposed to the action of the fire, is re

In appearance the above bezoars were very little different from those described by Messrs. Fourcroy and Vauquelin in their paper on Animal Concretions, as resinous intestinal bezoars, but a chemical analysis has established that there is a considerable difference between them.

duced into charcoal and consumed like the rest. The twelve grammes of bezoar left in the retort 4.320 grainmes of charcoal, which produced upon incineration 0-600 grammes of ashes, which when washed with water left on evaporation a residue formed of crystals, but so confused, and in so small a quantity, that their nature could not be distinguished: they were re-dissolved, and we ascertained by the nitrate of silver, the muriate of barytes, and the solution of platina, that it could be nothing but sulphate of soda with a small proportion of muriate of soda.

The residue from the lixiviation was submitted to the action of the weak muriatic acid: the whole was dissolved with effervescence, excepting 0.086 grammes of silex: the muriatic solution gave by means of ammonia a precipitate, which when collected on a filter and properly dried weighed 0.095 grammes: it appeared to be phosphate of lime; afterwards the carbonate of soda formed a precipitate, which, being dried, weighed 0.151, and which was carbonate of lime: loss 0.098. A second operation gave nearly similar products.

We see by the foregoing analysis that bezoars, such as the above, have no resemblance to other animal concretions, and that they give precisely the products of vegetable substances, and particularly those of wood.

Like wood they yield a great proportion of charcoal, and they present the greatest analogy to it when we submit them to the action of water, alcohol, the acids; but most of all the alkalis. I shall here quote a passage from Thomson's Chemistry, in which he describes the properties of the ligneous substance: "This substance is insoluble in water and alcohol: the fixed alkalis give it with the assistance of heat a deep brown colour: they soften and decompose it: : a weak alkaline solution dissolves it without altering its nature, and we may again precipitate it by an acid. This property renders wood susceptible of being easily separated from most other vegetable substances, since there are very few which are soluble in the weak alkaline lixivia."

We recognise, therefore, in the bezoar the ligneous substance with which the animal is fed: this concretion can only he formed in the stomach; for if it were produced in the intestines, we could not find in it pieces of straw in such good preservation: it would have received some alteration in its vegetable nature, and would be impregnated with some animal matter.

We should say that the softened, and as it were dissolved ligneous substance is consolidated again around a body

which has favoured its separation, and that its molecules have been able to condense and form a closer texture than that of wood, and assume along with the appearance a specific gravity greater than that of stone.

If we consider the nature of the salts which the bezoar has left by incineration, we may conjecture that the shrubs, which were the food of the animal in which it was formed, grew in soils where the base is soda, such as we know to exist throughout all Persia.

By

XXII. Reflections on some Mineralogical Systems. R. CHENEVIX, Esq. F. R.S. and M.R.I.A., &c. Translated entire from the French, with Notes by the Trans

lator.

[Concluded from p. 51.]

PRACTICAL USE OF THE WERNERIAN METHOD.

If the system and method of external characters had been en

titled The Miner's Guide or Mamial, we should have required from the author only that kind of knowledge which the miner might possess or employ. But how has it been imagined possible to qualify these principles with the name of science, when the auxiliary intelligence of all the collateral sciences has been excluded? In the estimation of specific gravity, in which there are as many degrees as bodies in nature, as we have seen, M. Werner admits of only five general divisions, and takes no notice of the details which constitute individuality. In the measure of angles, where nature has presented so many degrees and combinations drawn from the vast treasure of infinity, Werner despises the instrument which could give us new eyes to estimate them, or supposes its application too difficult for his science. Thus, we are taught what the mathematics have never suspected, that a right angle may be that which is greater than 90° in the ancient division of the circle; and two characters which he himself, and others still more than he, have justly considered as extremely important, are not only reduced to be of no greater value than unctuosity, coldness, &c.; but in studying them, we study errors; we learn to falsify the sciences, whose beauty and accuracy will never be equalled by details capable of filling a whole library on the empirical characters of minerals.

In all that the celebrated author of the system of external characters has done, it seems as if he had had no other ob