ABSTRACT
In November 1830, the Edinburgh chemist David Boswell Reid received a visit from a local workman named Arthur Trevelyan. Cold bars of lead, bell-metal, tin-solder and pale solder, when placed on heated iron or brass, produced vibration and tone. The cold lead block, placed on the heated polished bar of a fire-grate, sounds loudly, and vibrates rapidly. The heated bar vibrated on a piece of thin sheet lead, either placed loosely or soldered on brass, and on a lead block burnished with gold-leaf. The bars vibrate best when placed on blocks of lead with the surface somewhat rough: both metals also should be kept clean, and free from oxidation, which impairs the vibration. The oscillations of the cup thus resting upon a small surface continue long after it has become solid, indeed until the cup and its contents have fallen to a temperature not much above that of the metal upon which they rest.
