Thus our measure falls short of the
Doctor's, as five to eight: but then it must be acknowledged that
this candid philosopher was convinced afterwards, that some
latitude must be admitted of in the distance of echoes according to
time and place.
When experiments of this sort are making, it should always be
remembered that weather and the time of day have a vast influence
on an echo; for a dull, heavy, moist air deadens and clogs the
sound; and hot sunshine renders the air thin and weak, and deprives
it of all its springiness; and a ruffling wind quite defeats the whole.
In a still, clear, dewy evening the air is most elastic; and perhaps
the later the hour the more so.
Echo has always been so amusing to the imagination, that the poets
have personified her; and in their hands she has been the occasion
of many a beautiful fiction. Nor need the gravest man be ashamed
to appear taken with such a phenomenon, since it may become the
subject of philosophical or mathematical inquiries.
One should have imagined that echoes, if not entertaining, must at
least have been harmless and inoffensive; yet Virgil advances a
strange notion, that they are injurious to bees.
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