Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 6.djvu/711

Rh The whistle showed the same intermittence as to period, but in an opposite sense; for when the whistle was faint the pipe was strong, and vice versa. To obtain the fundamental note of the pipe it had to be blown gently, and on the whole the whistle proved the most efficient in piercing the fog.

An extraordinary amount of sound filled the air during these experiments. The resonant roar of the Bayswater and Knightsbridge roads; the clangor of the great bell of Westminster; the railway-whistles, which were frequently blown, and the fog-signals exploded at the various metropolitan stations, were all heard with extraordinary intensity. This could by no means be reconciled with the statements so categorically made regarding the acoustic impenetrability of a London fog.

On the 11th of December, the fog being denser than before, I heard every blast of the whistle, and occasional blasts of the pipe, over the distance between the bridge and the eastern end of the Serpentine. On joining my assistant at the bridge, the loud concussion of a gun was heard by both of us. A police-inspector affirmed that it came from Woolwich, and that he had heard several shots about 2 and previously. The fact, if a fact, was of the highest importance; so I immediately telegraphed to Woolwich for information. Prof. Abel kindly furnished me with the following particulars:

These were the reports heard by the police-inspector; on subsequent inquiry it was ascertained that two guns were fired at about 3 These were the guns heard by myself.

Prof. Abel also communicated to me the following fact:

Assuredly no question of science ever stood so much in need of revision as this of the transmission of sound through the atmosphere. Slowly but surely we mastered the question; and the further we advanced the more plainly it appeared that our reputed knowledge regarding it was erroneous from beginning to end.

On the morning of the 12th the fog attained its maximum density. It was not possible to read at my window, which fronted the open