Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 3.djvu/757

Rh gusts; and, if these gusts happen to be timed in accordance with the natural swing of the tree, the effect is irresistible. The slow vibrations which proceed from the largest pipes of a large organ, and which are below the range of musical sounds, are able to shake the walls and floors of a building so as to be felt, if not heard, thereby furnishing a background of noise on which the true musical sounds may be projected.

We have here the reason of the rule observed by marching armies when they cross a bridge; viz., to stop the music, break step, and open column, lest the measured cadence of a condensed mass of men should urge the bridge to vibrate beyond its sphere of cohesion. A neglect of this rule has led to serious accidents. The Broughton bridge, near Manchester, gave way beneath the measured tread of only sixty men who were marching over it. The celebrated engineer, Robert Stephenson, has remarked that there is not so much danger to a bridge, when it is crowded with men or cattle, or if cavalry are passing over it, as when men go over it in marching order. A chain-bridge crosses the river Dordogne on the road to Bordeaux. One of the Stephensons passed over it in 1845, and was so much struck with its defects, although it had been recently erected, that he notified the authorities in regard to them. A few years afterward it gave way when troops were marching over it.

A few years ago, a terrible disaster befell a battalion of French infantry, while crossing the suspension-bridge at Angers, in France. Reiterated warnings were given to the troops to break into sections, as is usually done. But the rain was falling heavily, and, in the hurry of the moment, the orders were disregarded. The bridge, which was only twelve years old, and which had been repaired the year before at a cost of $7,000, fell, and 280 dead bodies were found, besides many who were wounded. Among the killed or drowned were the chief of battalion and four other officers. Many of the guns were bent double, and one musket pierced completely through the body of a soldier. The wholesale slaughter at the bridge of Beresina, in Russia, when Napoleon was retreating from Moscow, in 1812, and his troops crowded upon the bridge and broke it, furnishes a fitting parallel to this great calamity.

"When Galileo set a pendulum in strong vibration by blowing on it whenever it was moving away from his mouth, he gave a good illustration of the way in which small but regularly-repeated disturbances grow into consequence. Tyndall tells us that the Swiss muleteers tie up the bells of the mules, for fear that the tinkle should bring an avalanche down. The breaking of a drinking-glass by the human voice, when its fundamental note is sounded, is a well-authenticated feat; and Chladni mentions an innkeeper who frequently repeated the