re entangled, and embarrassed in the covert, and weakened in the
rebound.

The true object of this echo, as we found by various experiments, is the
stone-built, tiled hop-kiln in Gally Lane, which measures in front forty
feet, and from the ground to the eaves twelve feet. The true _centrum
phonicum_, or just distance, is one particular spot in the king's field,
in the path to Nore Hill, on the very brink of the steep balk above the
hollow cart-way. In this case there is no choice of distance; but the
path, by mere contingency, happens to be the lucky, the identical spot,
because the ground rises or falls so immediately, if the speaker either
retires or advances, that his mouth would at once be above or below the
object.

We measured this polysyllabical echo with great exactness, and found the
distance to fall very short of Dr. Plot's rule for distinct articulation;
for the doctor, in his history of Oxfordshire, allows a hundred and
twenty feet for the return of each syllable distinctly; hence this echo,
which gives ten distinct syllables, ought to measure four hundred yards,
or one hundred and twenty feet to each syllable; whereas our distance is
only two hundred and fifty-eight yards, or near seventy-five feet, to
each syllable. 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 hand 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. After enumerating some prob