I give a sketch of the arrangement adopted in Fig. 138. The space between the burner and gauze was 2 inches. The gauze was about 7 inches square, resting on the ring of a retort-stand. It had 32 meshes to the lineal inch. The burner was Sugg’s steatite pinhole burner, the same as used for the vowel-flame.
The flame is a slender cone about four inches high, the upper portion giving a bright-yellow light, the base being a non-luminous blue flame. At the least noise this flame roars, sinking down to the surface of the gauze, becoming at the same time invisible. It is very active in its responses, and, being rather a noisy flame, its sympathy is apparent to the ear as well as the eye.
“To the vowel-sounds it does not appear to answer so discriminately as the vowel-flame. It is extremely sensitive to A, very slightly to E, more so to I, entirely non-sensitive to O, but slightly sensitive to U.
“It dances in the most perfect manner to a small musical snuff-box, and is highly sensitive to most of the sonorous vibrations which affect the vowel-flames.”
§ 14. Sensitive Smoke-jets
It is not to the flame, as such, that we owe the extraordinary phenomena which have been just described. Effects substantially the same are obtained when a jet of unignited gas, of carbonic acid, hydrogen, or even air itself, issues from an orifice under proper pressure. None of these gases, however, can be seen in its passage through air, and, therefore, we must associate with them some substance which, while sharing their motions, will reveal them to the eye. The method employed from time to time in this place of rendering aërial vortices visible is well known to many of you. By tapping a membrane which closes the mouth of a large funnel filled with smoke, we obtain beautiful smoke-rings, which reveal the motion of the air. By associating smoke with our gas-jets, in the present instance, we can also trace their course, and, when this is done, the unignited gas proves as sensitive as the flames. The smoke-jets jump, shorten, split into forks, or lengthen into columns, when the proper notes are sounded.
Underneath this gas-holder are placed two small basins, the one containing hydrochloric acid, and the other ammonia. Fumes of sal-ammoniac are thus copiously formed, and mingle with the gas contained in the holder. We may, as already stated, operate with coal-gas, carbonic acid, air, or hydrogen; each of them yields good effects. From our excellent steatite burner now issues a thin column of smoke. On sounding the whistle, which was so effective with the flames, it is found ineffective. When, moreover, the highest notes of a series of Pandean pipes are sounded, they are also ineffective. Nor will the lowest notes answer. But when a certain pipe, which stands about the middle of the series, is sounded, the smoke-column falls, forming a short stem with a thick, bushy head. It is also pressed down, as if by a vertical wind, by a knock upon the table. At every tap it drops. A stroke on an anvil, on the contrary, produces little or no effect. In fact, the notes here effective are of a much lower pitch than those which were most efficient in the case of the flames.
Fig. 139.
The amount of shrinkage exhibited by some of these smoke-columns, in proportion to their length, is far greater than that of the flames. A tap on the table causes a smoke-jet eighteen inches high to shorten to a bushy bouquet, with a stem not more than an inch in height. The smoke-column, moreover, responds to the voice. A cough knocks it down; and it dances to the tune of a musical-box. Some notes cause the mere top of the smoke-column to gather itself up into a bunch; at other notes the bunch is formed midway down; while notes of more suitable pitch cause the column to contract itself to a cumulus not much more than an inch above the end of the burner. Various forms of the dancing smoke-jet are shown in Fig. 139. As the music continues, the action of the smoke-column consists of a series of rapid leaps from one of these forms to another.