Page:The New International Encyclopædia 1st ed. v. 02.djvu/273

AUDIFFRET-PASQUIER. he was identified with the Orleanist opposition, and under the presidency of Thiers was one of the Moderate Conservative Party. In 1875 he was chosen president of the National Assembly, which he had entered in 1871, and though he had been an avowed supporter of the Bourbon restoration, he then accepted the Republic. He was the first life-Senator elected by the Assembly (1875); was president of the Senate from 1876-79, and in 1878 was chosen to the French Academy.

AU'DIOM'ETER (hybrid form, from Lat. audire, to hear + Gk. μέτρον, metron, measure). An instrument for the measurement of hearing, invented by Prof. D. E. Hughes, of London, in 1879. It consists of a battery, a microphonic key, two primary coils mounted at the extremities of a graduated bar, a secondary or induction-coil which moves along the graduated bar, and a telephone, the terminals of which are connected with the terminals of the induction-coil. The battery is connected with the microphonic key and the two primary coils, and the telephone is held at the ear of the person whose hearing is being tested. The amount of sound can be gradually increased by moving the induction-coil from the centre toward the larger of the two primary coils, and diminished by moving it toward the centre, the position at which it disappears being noted.

AU'DIPHONE (hybrid form, from Lat. audire, to hear + Gk. φωνή, phōnē, sound). An instrument to assist the hearing of persons whose auditory nerve has not been entirely destroyed. It consists of a thin sheet of ebonite rubber, hard vulcanite, or even glazed mill-board or birchwood veneer, fan-shaped, and having strings leading from the outer edge to the base of the handle, so that it may be brought to different degrees of convexity. When the outer edge is pressed against the upper front teeth and the convex side is outward, sound vibrations are conveyed to the auditory nerve through the teeth and bones of the head.

AUDI'TA QUERE'LA (Lat. the complaint having been heard, from audire, to hear, and querela, complaint). A form of action which lies for a defendant against whom judgment has been rendered (and who is, therefore, in danger of an execution), to restrain or prevent the execution, on account of some matter occurring after judgment, amounting to a discharge, as payment or release of the debt for which judgment was given. Blackstone describes it as an action of a high remedial character, in the nature of a bill in equity to be relieved against the oppression of the plaintiff, invented to protect a party who has a good defense, but is too late to make it in the ordinary forms of law (Comm. iii. 406). The modern practice of the courts in granting summary relief upon motion, in cases of such oppression, has generally superseded this form of remedy, but it may still be employed in many States of the United States where complete justice cannot be done in this summary manner. See ; ; ; also.

AUDITION, .a-dish'un, AU'DITORY SENSA'TION (Lat. audire, to hear). Our sensations of hearing fall into two great groups, as sensations of tone and sensations of noise. The former are musical, smooth; the latter, abrupt, rough, and harsh. The physical stimulus of auditory sensation is the vibration of some material body that is transmitted to the ear under ordinary conditions by a wave-movement of the air particles, a to-and-fro motion in the direction in which the sound travels (longitudinal vibration). If the wave-movement be that of a simple sinusoidal curve (pendular vibration), the resulting sensation is a simple tone. If the wave-movement be cut short at a very early stage of its progress, or if the air be disturbed by a mere shock or concussion, we have the sensation of simple noise. The tone of a tuning-fork, standing upon its resonance-box, is practically a simple tone; the pop of a soap-bubble is an instance of a simple noise. The musical tones of ordinary experience are doubly complicated; they consist of a number of simple tones, sounding together, and are further accompanied by complex noises. The tone emitted by a violin-string, e.g. contains a half dozen different simple tones, which may be discriminated under proper conditions (see ), as well as the scraping noise that arises from the drawing of the bow across the string. The noises of everyday life (crash, thump, clatter) are similarly complicated; they consist of a number of simple noises, among which a tonal element may often be distinguished.

The series of simple tonal qualities forms what is technically termed a continuous one- dimensional manifold; i.e. tones may be ar- ranged along a single line, or scale, within which every term is sepa- rated by insensible gra- dations from the terms next preceding and fol- lowing. Music (q.v.) employs less than 100 discrete tones, lying be- tween the e of 41¼ and the d of 4752 vibrations in the 1 sec. The range of hearing is much wider, extending, under favor- able circumstances, from the g of 12⅜ approxi- mately to the f of 45,056. The lower limit is de- termined by means of giant tuning-forks, of vibrating strips (lamellæ) of steel, or of weight- ed wire forks; the upper limit by miniature tun- ing-forks, by small steel cylinders, and by an ad- justable piston-whistle (Galton's whistle) actuated by a rubber bulb. Between these extreme limits the ear can dis- tinguish no less than 11,000 tonal qualities, or more than 100 times as many as are employed by orchestral music. So acute is our discrimination of tones that, in the middle region of the musical scale, two tones

audition. The series of tonal quali- ties. The keyboard of a grand piano extends from the A2 of 27½ vs. to the c5 of 4224 vs. The range of audition is approximately from the G3 of 12⅜ vs. to the e8 of 45,056 vs.