Handbook of Natural Philosophy: For School and Home Use

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Potter, Ainsworth, 1869 - Physics - 328 pages
 

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Page 253 - The rain is sometimes so copious that fresh water has been collected from the surface of the sea. As evening sets in, the surface of the earth and the...
Page 104 - It is lined with smooth masonry. When a pin is dropped into the well it is distinctly heard to strike the water. In certain parts of the Colosseum at London the tearing of paper sounds like the patter of hail, while a single exclamation comes back a peal of laughter.
Page 104 - Sounds are also reflected from the clouds. When the sky is clear, the report of a cannon on an open plain is short and sharp ; while a cloud is sufficient to produce an echo like the rolling of distant thunder. A feeble echo also occurs when sound passes from one mass of air to another of different density.
Page 51 - We know now that the underlying principle is the same as in a mercurial barometer : it is the pressure of the atmosphere on the surface of the water in the well that pushes the water up into the pump.
Page 116 - Take now two forks whose rates of vibration are in the ratio 4:5, or a major third apart ; the harmony is less perfect than in any of the cases which we have examined. With the ratio 5 : 6, or that of a minor third, it is usually less perfect still ; and we now approach a limit beyond which a musical ear will not tolerate the combination of two sounds. If, for example, we sound together two forks whose vibrations are in the ratio of 13 : 14, their combination is altogether discordant.
Page 248 - When they are of moderate height and size, of a welldefined curved outline, and appear only during the heat of the day, they indicate a continuance of fair weather. But when they increase with great rapidity, sink down into the lower parts of the atmosphere, and do not disappear towards evening, rain may be expected. If loose fleecy patches of cloud begin to appear thrown out from their surfaces, the rain is near at hand.
Page 250 - Cirro-cumulus. — This cloud is composed of well-defined, small, roundish masses, lying near each other, and quite separated by intervals of sky. It is formed from the cirrus cloud, the fibres of which break, and gather into these small masses. It is commonly known among sailors as a mackerel sky.
Page 169 - Why the image is seen as far behind the mirror as the object is in front of it.— Let AB be an arrow held Fig.
Page 301 - Nothing can be more surprising,' writes Sir John Herschel, in reference to this subject, 'than to see two persons, neither of them deaf, the one complaining of the penetrating shrillness of a sound, while the other maintains there is no sound at all.
Page 253 - These winds affect the rain-fall of India, and but for them the eastern districts of Hindostan would be constantly deluged •with rain, and the western districts constantly dry and arid. As it is, each part of India has its dry and wet seasons, summer being the wet season of the west and interior as far as the Himalaya, and winter the wet season of the east, and especially the south-east.

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