Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 7.djvu/440

424, although from conclusive evidence, furnished by the keeper, it was shown that the signal had been sounding during the whole time."

But, while the ten-inch shore-signal thus failed to make itself heard at sea, a six-inch whistle, on board the steamer, made itself heard on shore. Prof. Henry thus turns this fact against me: "It is evident," he writes, "that this result could not be due to any mottled condition or want of acoustic transparency in the atmosphere, since this would absorb the sound equally in both directions." Had the observation been made in a still atmosphere, this argument would, at one time, have had great force. But the atmosphere was not still, and a sufficient reason for the observed non-reciprocity is to be found in the recorded fact that the wind was blowing against the shore-signal, and in favor of the ship-signal.

But the argument of Prof. Henry, on which he places his main reliance, would be untenable, even had the air been still. By the very aërial reflexion which he practically ignores, reciprocity may be destroyed in a calm atmosphere. In proof of this assertion I would refer him to a short paper on "Acoustic Reversibility," printed at the end of this volume. The most remarkable case of non-reciprocity on record, and which, prior to the demonstration of the existence and power of acoustic clouds, remained an insoluble enigma, is there shown to be capable of satisfactory solution. These clouds explain perfectly the "abnormal phenomena" of Prof. Henry. Aware of their existence, the falling off and subsequent recovery of a signal-sound, as noticed by him and General Duane, is no more a mystery than the interception of the solar light by a common cloud, and its restoration after the cloud has moved or melted away.

The clew to all the difficulties and anomalies of this question is to be found in the aërial echoes, the significance of which has been overlooked by General Duane, and misinterpreted by Prof. Henry. And here a word might be said with regard to the injurious influence still exercised by authority in science. The affirmations of the highest authorities, that from clear air no sensible echo ever comes, were so distinct, that my mind for a time refused to entertain the idea. Authority caused me for weeks to depart from the truth, and to seek counsel among delusions. On the day our observations at the South Foreland began, I heard the echoes. They perplexed me. I heard them again and again, and listened to the explanations offered by some ingenious persons at the Foreland. They were an "ocean-echo:" this is the very phraseology now used by Prof. Henry. They were echoes "from the crests and slopes of the waves: "these are the words of the hypothesis which he now espouses. Through a portion of the month of May, through the whole of June, and through nearly the whole of July, 1873, I was occupied with these echoes; one of