Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 19.djvu/202

190 smoking the mica. In this experiment the effect was observed by placing the mica diaphragm against the ear, and also by listening through a hearing-tube, one end of which was closed by the diaphragm. The sound was found to be more audible through the free air when the ear was placed as near to the lampblack surface as it could be brought without shading it.



At the time of my communication to the American Association I had been unable to satisfy myself that the substances which had become sonorous under the direct influence of intermittent sunlight were capable of reproducing the sounds of articulate speech under the action of an undulatory beam from our photophonic transmitter. The difficulty in ascertaining this will be understood by considering that the sounds emitted by thin diaphragms and tubes were so feeble that it was impracticable to produce audible effects from substances in these conditions at any considerable distance away from the transmitter; but it was equally impossible to judge of the effects produced by our articulate transmitter at a short distance away, because the speaker's voice was directly audible through the air. The extremely loud sounds produced from lampblack have enabled us to demonstrate the feasibility of using this substance in an articulating photophone in place of the electrical receiver formerly employed.

The drawing (Fig. 2) illustrates the mode in which the