While the flame is singing a note nearly in unison with its own produces beats; and the flame is seen to jump in synchronism with the beats. The jumping is also observed when the position of the flame within its tube is not such as to enable it to sing.

NAKED FLAMES.

When the pressure of the gas which feeds a naked flame is augmented, the flame, up to a certain point, increases in size. But if the pressure be too great, the

flame roars or flares.

The roaring or flaring of the flame is caused by the state of vibration into which the gas is thrown in the orifice of the burner, when the pressure which urges it through the orifice is excessive.

If the vibrations in the orifice of the burner be superinduced by an extraneous sound, the flame will flare under a pressure less than that which, of itself, would produce flaring.

The gas under excessive pressure has vibrations of a definite period impressed upon it as it passes through the burner. To operate with a maximum effect upon the flame the external sound must contain vibrations synchronous with those of the issuing gas.

When such a sound is chosen, and when the flame is brought sufficiently near its flaring point, it furnishes an acoustic reagent of unexampled delicacy.

At a distance of 30 yards, for example, the chirrup of a house sparrow would be competent to throw the flame into commotion.

It is not to the flame, as such, that we are to ascribe these effects. Effects substantially similar are produced when we employ jets of unignited coal-gas, carbonic acid, hydrogen, or air. These jets may be rendered visible by

smoke, and the smoke jets show a sensitiveness to sonorous vibrations even greater than that of the flames.

When a brilliant sensitive flame illuminates an otherwise dark room, in which a suitable bell is caused to strike, a series of periodic quenchings of the light by the sound occurs. Every stroke of the bell is accompanied by a momentary darkening of the room.

Savart's experiments on the influence of sonorous vibrations on jets of water belong to the same class of effects. This subject is treated with sufficient fulness in the foregoing lecture, and still almost as briefly as a summary.

LECTURE VII.

LAW OF VIBRATORY MOTIONS IN WATER AND AIR-SUPERPOSITION OF VIBRATIONS-INTERFERENCE AND COINCIDENCE OF SONOROUS WAVES-DESTRUCTION OF SOUND BY SOUND-COMBINED ACTION OF TWO SOUNDS NEARLY IN UNISON WITH EACH OTHER-THEORY OF BEATS-OPTICAL ILLUSTRATION OF THE PRINCIPLE OF INTERFERENCE-AUGMENTATION OF INTENSITY BY PARTIAL EXTINCTION OF VIBRATIONS-RESULTANT TONESCONDITIONS OF THEIR PRODUCTION

EXPERIMENTAL ILLUSTRATIONS

DIFFERENCE TONES AND SUMMATION TONES-THEORIES OF YOUNG AND HELMHOLTZ.

FRO

ROM a boat in Cowes harbour, in moderate weather, I have often watched the masts and ropes of the ships, as mirrored in the water. The images of the ropes revealed the condition of the surface, indicating by long and wide protuberances the passage of the larger rollers, and, by smaller indentations, the ripples which crept like parasites over the sides of the nobler waves. The sea was able to accommodate itself to the requirements of all its undulations, great and small. When I touched the surface with my oar, or permitted the drops to fall from the oar into the water, there was also room for the tiny wavelets thus generated. This carving of the surface by waves and ripples had its limit only in my powers of observation; every wave and every ripple asserted its right of place, and retained its individual existence, amid the crowd of other motions which agitated the water.

The law that rules this chasing of the sea, this crossing and intermingling of innumerable small waves, is that the resultant motion of every particle of water is the sum

of the individual motions imparted to it. If any particle be acted on at the same moment by two impulses, both of which tend to raise it, it will be lifted by a force equal to the sum of both. If acted upon by two impulses, one of which tends to raise it, and the other to depress it, it will be acted upon by a force equal to the difference of both. When, therefore, I speak of the sum of the motions, I mean the algebraic sum, regarding the motions which tend to raise the particle as positive, and those which tend to depress it as negative.

When two stones are cast into smooth water, 20 or 30 feet apart, round each stone is formed a series of expanding circular waves, every one of which consists of a ridge and a furrow. The waves at length touch, and then cross each other, carving the surface into little eminences and depressions. Where ridge coincides with ridge, we have the water raised to a double height; where furrow coincides with furrow, we have it depressed to a double depth. Where ridge coincides with furrow, we have the water reduced to its average level. The resultant motion of the water at every point is, as above stated, the algebraic sum of the motions impressed upon that point. And if, instead of two sources of disturbance, we had ten, or a hundred, or a thousand, the consequence would be the same; the actual result might transcend our powers of observation, but the law above enunciated would still hold good.

Instead of the intersection of waves from two distinct centres of disturbance, we may cause direct and reflected waves, from the same centre, to cross each other. Many of you know the beauty of the effects observed when the light reflected from ripples of water, contained in a common tray, is received upon our screen.

When mer

cury is employed the effect is more brilliant still. Here, by a proper mode of agitation, direct and reflected waves

SUPERPOSITION OF VIBRATIONS.

257

may be caused to cross and interlace, and by the most wonderful self-analysis to untie their knotted scrolls. The djacent figure, fig. 138, which is copied from the work

of the brothers Weber, will give some idea of the beauty of these effects. It represents the chasing produced by the intersection of direct and reflected water-waves in a circular vessel, the point of disturbance, marked by the smallest circle in the figure, being midway between the centre and the circumference.

This power of water to accept and transmit multitudinous impulses is shared by air, which concedes the right of space and motion to any number of sonorous waves. The same air is competent to accept and transmit the vibrations of a thousand instruments at the same time. When we try to visualise the motion of that air-to present to the eye of the mind the battling of the pulses direct and reverberated

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