saw on a cippus, amongst the tombs, bout fifteen feet below the surface. It alludes to a man of Megara, who saved a corps of Athenians in one of the wars. (It is in Greek verse, and will be printed in the Reports of the third Class of the Institute.) I have likewise met with many other curious inscriptions. LETTER II. Athens, August 26, 1811. SIR,-J must apprise you, and request that you will make known the circumstance to the Third Class of the Institute, of a discovery of great importance to the arts, which has just been made in the isle of Egina. Four young artists and architects, two of whom, Baron Haller and M. Link, are Germans, having met together in this country, and being in pursuit of the same object, caused some excavations to be made at the foundation of the Temple of the Panhellenian Jupi ter; and they have found the statues which ornamented the front of this temple. These statues are of Parian marble, and they are as interesting on account of the subject they represent, as from their great antiquity and the beauty of their sculpture. It appears that this temple was overthrown by an earthquake, and the statues, falling first, were covered by the rest of the ruins: the lapse of time added heaps of vegetable strata to the rubbish, and the roots of large trees had shot amongst the buried architraves and cornices. Our young artists caused the whole to be brought to light, and they have found the statues, which have not been much injured by the fall. The limbs, which were broken from the trunks, were lying beside them, and they can be easily replaced. There are se venteen of these statues, all of the finest specimens of sculpture: the heads alone are a little degraded, but they are highly beautiful, scarcely any of the fragments are missing. These figures much resembles those which are seen on the most ancient medals of Corinth, Thebes, and Athens. They are of the old school of Egina, one of the first which became distinguished in Greece. I went to Egina in order to profit by this discovery, which much interested me: I measured this ruined temple, so as to gain all the particulars of its plan. The pediments were five feet in height. Over each pediment were two statues of Isis, which were attached to the border; and at the four angles of the edifice were Sphinxes. These figures were exactly similar to those of the pretended tomb of Achilles, in the Troad; and from this circumstance I am inclined to think that the temple in question is not that of the Panhellenian Jupiter, but that it was dedicated to Isis. In the middle of each pediment was a statue of Pallas, armed with a lance and shield, and her breast covered with the agis. She was standing in the midst of combatants, who surrounded her on every side, and she appears as if animating them by her looks. This figure of Minerva is of the most antique style, and of the kind which we improperly call Etruscan, with regular folds. On each side were the combatants, all of which appear to be the heroes of the Iliad. The faces seem to have been portraits, and the bodies are scientifi cally correct. These warriors are covered with offensive and defensive weapons, such as were in use at the time of the Trojan war: they are shaped with great nicety, and consist of quivers, helmets of different sizes, lances, shields, &c. The figures are rather less than the natural size. We thought we could discover Priam, with his sons, like a Phrygian archer, resting one knee on the ground, and drawing an arrow. His dress appears to be of leather, and made to fit close to the body; pantaloons, likewise tight, which descend to the ancles; the helmet has over it a leather bonnet, which terminates in a point, and falls over behind: this is the only figure that is dressed. Another is taken for Philoctetes; it is in the same attitude as Paris, and is opposed to the one just described; it is armed with a bow. The front of its helmet represents a lion's muzzle; perhaps the figure is meant as a friend of Hercules. He wears a cuirass of a single piece, which could only open on the left side, which leads to the opinion that it was thin and elastic. Hector, or another Trojan Prince, is overthrown; he has received a large wound in the breast; his hair, twisted symmetrically on the forehead, and fastened by a kind of diadem, falls over his shoulders. One head, with a small beard, and the casque thrown back, seems to be Ulysses. Of these figures, the archers alone are clothed; the others are of the heroic kind; that is to say, literally naked, and armed with casques and shields; some have also swords, others have lances and pikes. On the western pediment is a young girl, such as Venus is represented on the most most ancient silver medals of Corinth; she wears a large diadem, raised above the forehead, and which seems to imitate the roughness of metal. The head of a fine young man, who is supposed to be Achilles, has an elegant helmet, raised over the top of the head, falling back wards, and ornamented with a large crest. Beneath the casque the hair appears twisted over the forehead, and fastened by a kind of diadem. Another figure appears in the attitude of a rower, and is rising from his seat, that he may pull with greater force. This statue has no hair, except on the forehead. Amongst these ruins we found an eye of ivory, four inches long, and the ball of which was blank, which indicates that it belonged to a colossal statue. In this same isle of gina, towards the north-western end, near a great oval tumulus, which I took for the tomb of Phocus, and about a quarter of an hour's walk northwards from the temple of Venus, is a square place, regularly cut in the rock, sunk about fifteen feet, and at least a hundred fathoms in diameter; it seems to have been nothing but a mere quarry, from which stone has been taken for building. On this subject, however, there may be a difference of opinion, Near this spot are a number of cisterns cut in the rock, which is tolerably soft; there are also many large blocks of stone, regularly squared. LETTER III. Athens, Dec. 19, 1811. SIR,-I have received your fine map of Greece. It is very neat and clear, and I dare say very exact. But why place Phygalia at the temple of Apollo Epicurius, on Mount Cotylius? İ assure you that Phygalia is at present Caritena. Pausanias has so well described it, the steep rock, on which was the ci tadel, which rises in the middle of the town, and the river Limax, which runs through a deep ravine, that one cannot mistake it. Besides, on Mount Cotylius there are no ruins of a town; and the neighbouring village, Andritzena, has nothing of the antique. Caritena, in deed, is six hours journey from Mount Cotylius, which is three times the distance laid down by Pausanias: but Pau. sanias is sometimes in error. I have already said, that I do not believe the Temple, around which the diggings have been made in the isle of Egina, to be that of Panhellenian Jupiter, and that it rather appears to have been dedicated to Isis. But I have now renounced this idea. I have since found, in the excavations that have been made at Athens, a vase, on which is represented a marriage, and whereon is a figure exactly similar to those which are on the border of the pediment of the Temple of Egina. The figure is that of Juno, in a bridal dress; so that this Temple may have been that of the Panhellenian Jupiter, and not dedicated to Isis, as I at first supposed. All these figures serve to elucidate that which was found in the tomb of Achilles, and which has been so much metamorphosed by different writers. It is exactly the same as the one on my vase, and those which are on the border of the Temple of Egina: the same sex, the same attitude, and the same folds of drapery. Sphinxes were at the angles of the Temple of Egina, and Sphinxes are on the head and arms of the figure of the tomb of Achilles. Hence we know the great antiquity of this figure, and of that of the tomb in question; though many efforts have been made to diminish it. If the Temple on the isle of Ægina be that of Panhellenian Jupiter, I can say, that I have seen the altar on which the Greeks vowed the destruction of Troy. I have observed, that I assisted at several of the excavations which were made near the Hippades Gate, at Athens: some others have since been made near the Gate Dipylon; and at the depth of twentyfive feet, some fine vases have been discovered, particularly several which appear to be of Phoenician manufacture. I have also dug behind the Museum, and afterwards all round the ancient walls; and the contiguity of the sepulchres which were discovered, leaves no doubt as to the ancient site of the town. found a bas-relief, and many cippi, of different forms: the inscription on the bas-relief speaks of a man named Aristotle; but who, without doubt, is not the philosopher of Stagira. I and conversing with the colliers. I have having shining fractures like coal, and seen in many places the coal-seams re- being intermixed with pyrites, as are peatedly broken, so that they basset-out some coals, and as I have seen peat in many times at the same level. In genesome parts of North Holland, in which ral the greatest expense for working the pyrites are found. 3. The same faults, coal-beds is occasioned by the numerous and with the same characters as in coalfaults, the change of inclination and of heds, are found in that fossil peat, and level of the same seam, and the depth at evidently by a greater subsidence of one which they are obliged to follow them, side of a fracture than the other; which whence the water is to be pumped out. I faults also extend through all the stony have given an instance of this, with many strata, above and under. 4. These beds details, in p. 216, of the first volume of abut against stony strata, both of limemy Travels in England. stone and grit, in such a manner, that the miners must cut their way through these strata sidewise, to arrive at the peat bed. 5. The convulsions of the strata, in which blocks had been thrown on the surface, had preceded the formation of these peat mosses or islands; for large blocks of primordial stones are found at the bottom of this fossil-peat. In the beginning of the above quoted passage Mr. Farey says: "Mr. De Luc mentions having proved in his works, that coal-beds are submerged peat mossesa position from which I must entirely dissent, after having examined large tracts of carboniferous strata.' Thus far I have followed him in all that he has said to prove his opinion, but I am going to adduce such a proof of mine as I cannot doubt will convince him. For this I must again refer to my Geological Travels, now in the press; but they will be soon published, and the facts which I shall now relate will be found in them, with all their par ticulars. I have described many hills in the countries of Hesse and Brunswick, and indicated some in other parts of Germany, where are found beds of what is called in those countries Surturbrandt, or brown coal, which is absolutely fossilpeat, with very little alteration. Mere peat occupies the upper part, and mosses, branches, and roots of trees, are found in the lower part, as in the recent peat mosses. These beds, of evident vegetable origin, lie on lime-stone strata, containing marine bodies, and are covered with stony strata of other kinds, exactly in the same manner as the coal beds. They have been discovered on the sides of vallies, in the sections of the strata produced by subsidence. This will appear evidently by the description which I give of these vallies. These beds are worked for fuel; I entered three of them, from thirty to sixty reet thick, and of an noknown extent, because they dip under the superficial ground. Now the following circumstances will be found, with many details, in my descriptions. 1. In some places these beds are worked for the wood at the bottom, and are entered at that part in their section towards the valley. 2. In other places they are entered by the upper part, where, to a certain depth, the peat is almost mineralized into coal, I persuade myself that, when Mr. Farey shall have seen such precise facts, and many others, in these Travels, he will conceive to how great an extent the ob servations should be carried previously to the formation of any geological system: he will judge also that I had solid reasons for all my assertions; and, in particular, that, in my explanation of the origin of coal-beds, I had been directed by incontrovertible facts. The author comes next to an object, referring to my answer to Common Sense, which deserves examination, he says, p. 516, "That the internal parts of the earth are cavernous, is pretty completely disproved by the general gravity of the whole mass; and that it was ever caver, nous, as Mr. De Luc asserts, p. 414, aš an essential point of his theory, I see the strongest reasons to disbelieve; and to think that the valleys having been occasioned by the angular motions and depressions of parts of the strata into these caverns, is alike a mistaken imagery." Mr. Farey has noticed my Travels in England, but I may judge that he has not been sufficiently attentive to all their parts. In the first volume, being the second of my Travels, describing, at p. 129, & seq. the hills and quarries of Swanage, and after having explained how the actual caverns in our continents must absolutely have proceeded from the subsidence of parts of the strata in pre-existent caverns underneath, I described external phenomena in all the parts of these hills, which demonstrated it as a fact. But in the same volume I gave an accurate description of a ridge of calcareous mountains, mountains in Somersetshire, named the Mendip-hills. I ascended these hills by the remarkable cleft called Chedder.cliffs, in which I pointed out indisputable proofs of a fracture, with angular motions, different in its opposite sides; and in particular I mentioned the openings of three caverns, at different levels, on these sides, relating what a well-informed inhabitant of the country bad described to me of the interior form of these caverns. Afterwards I described the top of these hills, on which the lime-stone strata are bassetting-out: then I came to a great intersec tion of these hills, near the town of Wells, in which intersection is the opening of a famous cavern named Wookey-hole; whence, as well as at the foot of Chedder cliffs, issues a clear stream of water; a proof that there are in these hills large reservoirs, where the waters, muddy when they enter the crevices of the sur face in time of rain, deposit their sedi ments. I went some way in that cavern with the guide who is accustomed to at tend the curious, and he gave me the same description of the internal parts of the hill, as I had heard at Chedder-cliffs; for he told me that these caverns also were interrupted by great faults, branching off in various directions; and he gave me a proof that all these caverns communicated to one another from Wookcy-hole to Chedder-cliffs; that a dog, entering at the former, and losing its way to return, had come out some days after at Cheddercliffs, quite emaciated. After having related all these circumstances, I came at p. 429 of the same vo lume, to shew that these caverns, in our Continents, demonstrated the pre-existence of cavities in the globe. It is impossible to doubt that these caverns have been produced by some catastrophes of the strata, that catastrophe must have been occasioned either by the subsidence of the parts now the lowest, as in my system; or by the lifting up of the parts now the highest, which appears to be Mr. Farey's sense, when he speaks of lifts in Derbyshire. But, whatever be the case in this last respect, I decided that absolute dilemma, by the following peremp tory argument. If the highest parts bad been raised,' there could not have existed any vacancy in the mass thus lifted up; since the pressure exercised from below, would have been communicated in succession to every part of the mass. Whereas, in the subsidence of the strata, there must have remained vacancies with 1 all the characters observed in our caverns, in the manner which I have explained. In a journey after this, proceeding from Totness, along the river Dart, I described the singular changes, at the same level, between the lime-stone and the schisti, with grey-wacke; the former of which, in that country, are called slate; and the latter, dun-stone. Such a situation of strata, so different in their kinds, cannot have any other cause thayi catastrophes. I stopped at Buckfastleigh, a small town, situated in a dale, behind a small insulated hill, which attracted my attention; for I saw it consisting, on one side, of Ime-stone strata, much broken; and on the opposite side, of slate and dun-stone. In walking quite around this hill, I met with a gentleman of the place, whom I found kindly disposed to answer my questions; his informations are related from page 104, of the second volume of my Travels in England; therefore I shall only give a short account of them. Having inquired of him, whether that mixture of different kinds of strata extended to a great distance, he answered me: "That in this country every thing indicated that there had been some great revolution, which had produced, not merely external disorder, but also great effects in the external parts of the ground," He then informed me, that in the mass of the calcareous strata, in parts where, being too deep, they did not appear externally, there were many caverns, of which he gave me the following particulars:-"They are divided into different chambers, adorned with pillars of sta lactites. It is very dangerous to proceed far in these caverns, con account of fissures so deep, that, if a large stone is thrown down them, it is heard for some time to strike against the sides, after which the noise generally dies away; but in some chasms, where, after some time, the stone can still be beard to reach the bottom, the sound is that of falings into water." This is again a phenomenon of the caverns of our Continents, which cannot be explained but by the subsidence of the broken strata, occasioned by previously existing cavities in the globe. This gentleman told me farther: "That these caverns communicated with each other by passages, more or less wide, forming a kind of subterranean labyrinth, where no body darst venture far, and of which, therefore, the extent remained ucknown.' 24 Remarks on Mr. Farey's Notation of Musical Intervals. [Feb. 1, unknown." As an instance of this, he related to me, "that some time before, when he had been out shooting, one of his dogs, pursuing a rabbit, had entered a hole in a rock; that he waited for him, and called him a long time, but in vain; so that he had concluded him actually lost in some cavern: however, after some days, the dog returned home, but excessively lean and almost dying; so that, though much care was taken of him, it was a great while before he recovered." This is the same case as the dog in the caverns of the Mendip hills, and shows precisely the nature of those caverns. In the same part of my Travels, I described many other phænomena which I recommend to the attention of M. Farey, as they led me to the following conclusion, (repeated in many parts of my Travels, after similar descriptions :) "That no doubt can remain, that all the strata of that country have undergone subsidences, with angular motions of their parts divided by fractures; and that the low space through which the Dart now winds, is the part where this subsidence was the greatest." Windsor. J. A. DE Luc. deavours at explanation, I remain one of the many who cannot perceive the superiority of the notation which he has derived from the manuscripts in the Royal Institution. I still think, with Lord Stanhope and the author of the Retrospect (vol. iv. p. 4, 1809), that his way of expressing an interval by E. f. and m. is as unnecessary as to express the number 8691 by 8000+600+3 score +2 dʊzen+7. If any of your readers have reasons for holding a different opinion of Mr. Farey's would-be-thought improvement in the calculation of intervals, they would afford me, and others, much pleasure by making those reasons public. Mr. Liston indeed calls the notation ingenious, but no-where employs it in his large folio of 144 pages, whollyon musical intervals, entitled an "Essay on Perfect Intonation;" 1812. There is another practice of Mr. Farey's which, I am pleased to observe, is as little followed by respectable writers as the preceding. The practice to which I allude is the needless, or worse than needless, introduction of such words as the following, for which he seems to entertain a father's fondness: "Douzeave, quatorzeave, siezave, dixseptave, dixneuf To the Editor of the Monthly Magazine. ave, vingtunave, vingtduxave, vingiqua SIR, treave, cinquarteneufave." Philos. Mag. IN reply to an inquiry that night well No. 170, &c. Are these terms French be made, respecting the utility and superiority of the notation of musical intervals chosen by Mr. John Farey, that gentleman remarks, that logarithms represent ratios" only when an indefinitely great number of places of figures are used, the least or the greatest musical intervals, those having the most simple ratios (as 1:2) having just as long a sound and complicated a common logarithm as the largest, most incommensurate, or complicated ratio.” Now, I wish to ask the ingenious Mr. Farey, what he means, in this sentence, by a long sound; and next, what the length of a sound has to do with musical intervals? By the length of a sound, is generally understood its duration, or the length of time, which it continues audible; and the most ignorant in harmonics will admit, that an interval is the same whether the two sounds which form or constitute that interval, continue audible for one minute, for half an hour, or for any portion of time whatever. As Mr. John Farey writes for the public, your readers have a right to expect that he will "descend" to give some explanation. Notwithstanding Mr. F.'s former en or English? If French, why should we prefer French words to Latin or Italian? Italian terms, it would appear, should have the preference, on account of that language being so much connected with music, and being, in the judgment of the great Dryden, the most musical of all languages, living or dead. If he is desirous to Frenchify our musical terms and to press the French cardinal numbers into his service, let him do so uni formly, and write huitave instead of oc tave, &c. Perhaps, however, he may aspire to the reputation of a Hudibras, who "Could coin or counterfeit New words, with little or no wit, Words so debased and hard, no stone Was hard enough to touch them on." These long words remind me of the terms "superparticular, subsuperparticular, sesquialterate, subsesquialterate, superpartient, subsuperpartient, submultiplex, superparticular," &c. &c. in Eu clid's Section of the Canon, and in some old and useless Treatises on Music. Farey's term douzeave, if I understand him, denotes a system in which there are eleven sounds differing in pitch, be Mr. |