SYMPATHETIC VIBRATIONS.
When it is once understood that a musical sound is caused by the vibrations more or less frequent which only make the difference we call pitch, it might at once be inferred, that if we have a body that is capable of vibrating say a hundred times a second, and it receives a hundred pulses or pushes a second, it would in this way be made to vibrate. Suppose, then, that we take two tuning-forks, each capable of vibrating 256 times a second: if one be struck while the other is left free, the former one will be giving to the air 256 impulses per second, which will reach the other fork, each pulse tending to move it a little, the cumulative result being to make it move perceptibly, that is, to give out a sound. The principle is just the same as that employed in the common swing. One push makes the swing to move a little, upon its return another is given, in like manner a third, and so on until a person may be swung many feet high. If a glass tumbler be struck, it gives out a musical sound of a certain pitch, which will set a piano-string sounding that is tuned to the same pitch, provided that the damper be raised. It is said that some persons' voices have broken tumblers by singing powerfully near them the same note which the tumblers could give out, the vibrations of the tumblers being so great as to overcome cohesion of the molecules.
There are very many interesting effects due to sympathetic vibrations.
Large trees are sometimes uprooted by wind that comes in gusts timed to the rate of vibration of the tree. When troops of soldiers are to cross a bridge, the music ceases, and the ranks are broken, lest the accumulated strain of timed vibrations should break the structure; indeed, such accidents have several times occurred. There is not so much danger to a bridge when it is heavily loaded with men or with cattle, as when a few men go marching over it. "When the iron bridge at Colebrooke Dale was building, a fiddler came along, and said to the workmen that he could fiddle their bridge down. The builders thought this boast a fiddle-de-dee, and invited the musician to fiddle away to his heart's content. One note after another was struck upon the strings, until one was found with which the bridge was in sympathy. When the bridge began to shake violently, the workmen were alarmed at the unexpected result, and ordered the fiddler to stop."
Some halls and churches are wretchedly adapted to hear either speaking or singing in. If wires be stretched across such halls, between the speaker's stand and the opposite end, they will absorb the passing sound-waves, and will be made to sympathetically vibrate, thus preventing in a good degree the interfering echoes. The wire should be rather fine piano-wire, and it should be stretched so tightly as to give out a low musical sound when plucked with the fingers. In a large hall there should be twenty or more such wires.