| Citation |
NYJ-N.767.075
28 May 1767:21 (1273)
Extract of a letter from Bath, Feb. 1.--"You may talk of
your Jonas in London, but we have at this place a gentleman
from Devonshire, who performs a feat very surprising without
any slight of hand. This person gives the company four or
five cards, on each of which is marked a musical chord,
called the sympathetic chord. You are to observe, that each
card has a different chord wrote on it from any of the rest.
He then bids them take them to the other end of the room,
and change them in whatever manner they please; he goes
himself to a harpsichord, and desires any one of the company
to touch one of those cards, and he immediately places his
hands on the very notes wrote on the card, without knowing
which is touched; this he does to every card that is pitched
upon, and desires any master of music to prove that he
touches the right notes, to satisfy the company. There can
be no fraud in his feat, because he leaves the company to
fix on the card, and if they choose a second, he changes his
hands to the different notes wrote on that card. The masters
here confess that the thing is done, but cannot find out by
what means; some say that there is a magnetical influence,
but this is not clear. This gentleman does not himself know
one note of music, yet bets any wager that he changes his
hands as they touch different cards, and indeed seldom if
ever fails.--Acquaint the curious with this ingenious
discovery, which is founded on the mathematics."
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