Take a long piece of wood, such as the handle of a hair broom, and placing a watch at one end, apply your ear to the other, and the tickings will be distinctly heard.
TO SHOW THAT SOUND DEPENDS ON VIBRATION.
Touch a bell when it is sounding, and the noise ceases; the same may be done to a musical string with the same results. Hold a musical pitch-fork to the lips, when it is made to sound, and a quivering motion will be felt from its vibrations. These experiments show that sound is produced by the quick motions and vibrations of different bodies.
MUSICAL FIGURES RESULTING FROM SOUND.
Cover the mouth of a wine glass, having a foot-stalk, with a thin sheet of membrane, over which scatter a layer of fine sand. The vibrations excited in the air by the sound of a musical instrument, held within a few inches of the membrane, will cause the sand on its surface to form regular lines and figures with astonishing celerity, which vary with the sound produced.
TO MAKE AN ÆOLIAN HARP.
This instrument consists of a long narrow box of very thin deal, about six inches deep, with a circle in the middle of the upper side of an inch and a half in diameter, in which are to be drilled small holes. On this side seven, ten, or more strings of very fine catgut are stretched over bridges at each end like the bridges of a fiddle, and screwed up or relaxed with screw pins. The strings must all be tuned to one and the same note,[5] and the instrument should be placed in a window partly open, in which the width is exactly equal to the length of the harp, with the sash just raised to give the air admission. When the air blows upon these strings with different degrees of force, it will excite different tones of sound. Sometimes the blast brings out all the tones in full concert, and sometimes it sinks them to the softest murmurs.
[5] D is a good note for it. The upper string may be tuned to the upper D, and the two lower to the lower D and D D. The “harmonics” are the sounds produced.
A colossal imitation of the instrument just described was invented at Milan in 1786, by the Abbate Gattoni. He stretched seven strong iron wires, tuned to the notes of the gamut, from the top of a tower sixty feet high, to the house of a Signor Moscate, who was interested in the success of the experiment; and this apparatus, called the “giant’s harp,” in blowing weather yielded lengthened peals of harmonious music. In a storm this music was heard at a greater distance.