Item 38 - Letter from William Whewell

2 pp.

WW recommends HJR 'to trust to experiment than to any reasonings of us theorists: for the doctrine of sound is by no means as yet in such a state that you can deduce complex conclusions, (such as the audibility of the same speaker in all parts of a large room), from simple principles, with any great confidence'. WW gives his opinion as to the best shaped pulpit head speaker (parabola or spherical) and provides drawings to accompany his arguments. If HJR can get set up the magazine [the British Magazine] he speaks of[,] it could be a good thing - 'especially if you can drive out of the heads of laymen the notion that the church consists of the clergy only and that they have nothing to do with it'.