Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 12.djvu/743

Rh the distance of the source of the sound from the membrane, and the same compound sound will form an infinite number of different traces as we gradually increase the distance of its place of origin from the membrane; for, as you increase this distance, the waves of the components of the compound sound are made to strike on the membrane at different periods of their swings.

For example, if the compound sound is formed of six harmonics, the removal of the source of the sonorous vibrations, from the membrane to a distance equal to of a wave-length of the 1st harmonic, will remove the 2d, 3d, 4th, 5th, and 6th harmonics to distances from the membrane equal respectively to, , 1, 1, and 1 wave-lengths. The consequence evidently is, that the resultant wave-form is entirely changed by this motion of the source of the sound, though the sonorous sensation of the compound sound remains unchanged.

The above facts are readily proved experimentally by sending a constant compound sound into the cone of König's apparatus, while we gradually lengthen the tube between the cone and the membrane next to the flame. This is best done by the intervention of one tube sliding in another, like a trombone. These experiments I have recently made with entire success, and they explain the discussions which have arisen between different observers as to the composition of vocal and other composite sounds, as analyzed by means of König's vibrating flames.

These facts also show how futile it is for any one to hope to be able to read the impressions and traces of phonographs, for these traces will vary, not alone with the quality of the voices, but also with the differently-related times of starting of the harmonics of these voices, and with the different relative intensities of these harmonics.

It is necessary to give to the cylinder a very regular motion of rotation while it receives and reproduces the vibrations made in singing; for even slight irregularities in the velocity of the cylinder destroy the accuracy of the musical intervals, and cause the phonograph to sing falsetto. Even the reproducing of speech is greatly improved by rotating the cylinder by mechanism which gives it uniformity of motion. If you make the machine talk by giving it a more rapid rotation than it had when you spoke to it, the pitch of its voice is raised; and by varying the velocity of the cylinder the machine may be made to speak the same sentence in a very bass voice, or in a voice of a pitch so high that its sounds are really elfish and entirely unnatural.

Recent experiments seem to show that the nearer the diaphragm A approaches to the construction of the drum-skin of the human ear by "damping" it, as the hammer-bone does the latter, the better does it record and repeat the sonorous vibrations; for the motion of a membrane thus damped is ruled alone by the aërial vibrations falling on it.