Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 17.djvu/841

Rh in conducting these experiments. When a solution of alum, or bisulphide of carbon, is employed, the loudness of the sound produced by the intermittent beam is very slightly diminished; but a solution of iodine in bisulphide of carbon cuts off most, but not all, of the audible effect. Even an apparently opaque sheet of hard rubber does not entirely do this. When the sheet of hardrubber was held near the disk interrupter, the rotation of the disk interrupted what was then an invisible beam, which passed over a space of about twelve feet before it reached the lens, which finally concentrated it upon the selenium-cell. A faint but perfectly perceptible musical tone was heard from the telephone connected with the selenium. This could be interrupted at will by placing the hand in the path of the invisible beam. It would be premature, without further experiments, to speculate too much concerning the nature of these invisible rays; but it is difficult to believe that they can be heat-rays, as the effect is produced through two sheets of hard rubber, containing between them a saturated solution of alum. Although effects are produced, as above shown, by forms of radiant energy which are invisible, we have named the apparatus for the production and reproduction of sound in this way, the "photophone," because an ordinary beam of light contains the rays which are operative.

It is a well-known fact that the molecular disturbance produced in a mass of iron by the magnetizing influence of an intermittent electrical current can be observed as sound by placing the ear in close contact with the iron. It occurred to us that the molecular disturbance produced in crystalline selenium by the action of an intermittent beam of light should be audible in a similar manner without the aid of a telephone or battery. Many experiments were made to verify this theory, without definite results. The anomalous behavior of the hard rubber screen suggested the thought of listening to it also. This experiment was tried with extraordinary success. I held the sheet in close contact with my ear, while a beam of intermittent light was focused upon it by a lens. A distinct musical note was immediately heard. We found the effect intensified by arranging the sheet of hard rubber as a diaphragm, and listening though a hearing-tube. We then tried crystalline selenium in the form of a thin disk, and obtained a similar but less intense effect. The other substances which I enumerated at the beginning of my address were now successively tried in the form of thin disks, and sounds were obtained from all but carbon and thin glass. We found hard rubber to produce a louder sound than any other substance we tried, excepting antimony, and paper and mica to produce the weakest sounds. On the whole, we feel warranted in announcing as our conclusion that sounds can be produced by the action of a variable light from substances of all kinds, when in the form of thin diaphragms. We have heard from interrupted sunlight very perceptible musical tunes through tubes of ordinary vulcanized