D.C. Carr wrote:
> ... the striking of the hammers was
> responsibile for the detuning.
 
??!!  I haven't seen the original reference.  I though I understood
the statement relating detuning and Young fairly clearly.  The part
about "at least in the middle octave" seemed simply to be recognizing
that really high and low notes get much less action in  general than
notes in the middle.  And "detuning" seemed to be referring to
intentional deviation from equal, rather than accidental, unintended
deviations due to being struck repeatedly.  Now once you resolve the
fuzziness regarding exactly what is being "detuned" (strings or
intervals), the statement relating detuning and Young's temperament
can at least be put to a real statistical test.
 
--Don Simons