Sound (body of water)

“ To them the water is the medium of sound, and granting that their auditory nerves have the same sensibility as those of man, they will hear sounds not only more quickly, more distinctly, but at greater distances. This is accounted for by "the greater elasticity of the constituent particles of water, within the minute distance required for their action in propagating sound. Stones struck together under water are heard at great distances by a person under water. ”

“ The wave which is breaking into foam, which is rippling over the pebbles, which throws up the broken water, which falls back on to the land and makes music, sound, melody as it breaks—that is the wave which is nearly over; it is the wave whose course is run. ”

“ I have said nothing about the mode in which conversation is carried on below the water. Sound, as is well known, is transmitted more readily and with greater velocity through water than through air, but talking in the ordinary way is not practicable in water; for, with every word uttered, there comes out of the mouth a great bubble of air that very much interferes with the distinctness of the sound emitted, and has a most unbecoming and ridiculous appearance. ”

“ The eye never tires in looking at the lively scene, and the ear drinks in the murmuring and thundering sound, which has the usual faculty of swelling and falling, till the mind gets imbued with the idea that the waters are endowed with the faculty of speech, so that we involuntarily ask 'what are the wild waves saying?' and linger long at the spot in the vain hope that the varying syllables of the living water will yet form themselves into intelligible words. ”

“ The most ingenious and beautiful contrivances for deep-sea sounding were resorted to. By exploding heavy charges of powder in the deep sea, when the winds were hushed and all was still, the echo or reverberation from the bottom might, it was held, be heard and the depth determined from the rate at which sound travels through water. ”

“ Water is not only a better medium for carrying sound but also, since it contains fewer obstructions, sound waves travel farther through it. Another thing which we must not forget is that our ears do not hear all the sounds that go on about us. ”

“ The stillness was intense; every slightest sound,—the creak of a bough or the ripple of a passing musquash, the plunk of a water drop into the lake or the snap of a rotten twig, broken by the weight of clinging mist,—came to the strained ear with startling suddenness. Then, as I waited and sifted the night sounds, a dainty plop, plop, plop! sent the canoe gliding like a shadow toward the shore whence the sounds had come. ”

“ Sufficient has already been said to make it clear to you that one essential difference between sound or noise and music, as far as regards the events taking place outside of our own organism, is that, in the first case, we have a more or less irregular motion in the air, and, in the second, a rhythmical movement, constituting a train of air waves. ”

“ Now, as light is supposed to be produced by waves or undulations of an ethereal medium filling all nature, and occupying the pores of the transparent bodies; and as sound is produced by undulations or waves in the air: so the successive production of light and darkness by two bright lights, and the production of sound and silence by two loud sounds, may be explained in the very same manner as we have explained the increase and obliteration of waves formed on the surface of water. ”

“ Cleaving the still and frosty air comes a deep-toned, lugubrious howl, long-drawn, and proceeding apparently from the sea itself—a dismal, unearthly baying, not loud, but with a carrying vibration that renders the sound no less felt than heard. ”

“ Not only must the object, either solid, liquid, or gaseous, be in motion to produce sound, but the air surrounding the vibrating body must also be moving in unison with it. And lastly there must be some medium of receiving the sound waves—the ear or some part of the body. ”

“ We know further that if two different lines of waves run along with one another, their crests and hollows fall together, and their crests become as high again and their hollows as deep again. So two tones from different sources of sound are twice as strong when they are both equally high, and a new tone of the same height added to them will still further increase the sound. But when two agitations of the surface of the water so move that the crests of one fall into the hollows of the other, their movements neutralize each other. ”

“ If one pauses to listen, he will hear a gurgling of running water down in the leviathan's inside, not unlike that made when its living namesake pours a draught of water from his trunk down into his throat. Here, as everywhere else in active spring formations, the sound of running water can be heard beneath the surface incrustation. ”

“ For instance, place your ear over a tube, the other end of which is under water, and let a bell be struck, stationed under water at some miles distance, and it will be found that the sound will travel through the particles of water much more rapidly than through the atmosphere. ”

“ When the air is set in motion by the vibration of certain bodies of wood, metal and other material, we know that sound waves, striking upon the tympanum of the ear, penetrate to the brain and imagination. ”

“ Before I answer that question, I must explain the supposed nature of those vibrations of the air, upon which sound depends; you will then readily perceive why one species of matter should be better calculated than another for exciting them. It is generally believed that sound is conveyed through air by a succession of pulsations similar to those which are occasioned on the surface of smooth water by throwing a pebble into it. ”

“ To account for sound originating in one place being heard in another, it is observed, that sound is propagated by undulation, wave after wave, radiating in every direction, from a centre, like the blossoms of a Nauclea. ”

“ Why does water conduct sound faster than air?
Because the particles of water are closer together than the particles of air.
How can we prove that water is a conductor of sound?
When a bell is rung under water, the sound may be heard by any person whose head is beneath the surface of the water.
Does a solid substance conduct sound more rapidly than air? ”

“ There is no danger and the silent height is so high that sound rises higher. This does not make sound infamous, it does not shatter a conclusion. Nothing is hollow in water, nothing is high in air, nothing is louder and nothing is perpendicular. The establishment is thorough. A chance shows a bright blue sound, a chance is the same wind out of a window. ”

“ But associated with these nerves arranged in tufts, or buttons, are air-cells, hence it seems certain that the fish is able to appreciate vibration in water, whose wave-lengths are larger than are those of sound. The faculty of appreciating the waves of light, we call seeing, and similarly of sound, hearing, whose waves are much larger than those of light. But our scaly subject is endowed with a third wave-measuring sense, in which possession it out-paragons "the paragon" himself. ”

“ Through water the musical sound is not transmitted, only the harsh material noise. In air the noise is heard very near, the musical sounds only are transmitted. Be thankful, poets and prophets, when you live in an element such that your uncomely features are known only to your own village. ”

“ Yes, the sound of water, the voice of the wind—completely foreign to human passions. All the other sounds of this earth brought contamination to the solitude of a soul. ”

“ Sound is audible in air, and so it is in water, although less distinctly; but neither air nor water is the efficient cause of sound, as for it there must be percussion of solid bodies against each other and against the air, and this is effected whenever the air, having been percussed, remains, is not, that is, dispersed. Thus, if the air be struck sharply and forcibly it gives out sound ”

“ Consider the case of a loud sound made near the surface of the earth. If the air were all at rest, and everywhere at the same temperature, the sound waves should spread out in hemispherical form. But if, as is generally the case, the temperature near the ground is higher than it is up above, then the part of the wave near the earth travels more quickly than that in the higher regions of the air. ”

“ Different bodies conduct sound to the ear with more or less distinctness, according to their susceptibility for vibrating, and also with more or less rapidity. Ice, for example, conveys sound more speedily than water, and far more rapidly than air ”

“ A loud noise will startle fish, and cause them to dart away, so we conclude that the sound must have reached them through the water. An Indian puts his ear to the ground in order to detect distant footsteps, because sounds too faint to be heard through the air are comparatively clear when transmitted through the earth. A gentle tapping at one end of a long table can be distinctly heard at the opposite end if the ear is pressed against the table; if the ear is removed from the wood, the sound of tapping is much fainter, showing that wood transmits sound more readily than air. ”

“ Nature always possesses a certain sonorousness, as in the hum of insects, the booming of ice, the crowing of cocks in the morning, and the barking of dogs in the night, which indicates her sound state. God's voice is but a clear bell sound. I drink in a wonderful health, a cordial, in sound. The effect of the slightest tinkling in the horizon measures my own soundness. ”

“ It is a sound that suits the place, and when the wind blows hard, bringing the noise of the waves to your ears, and the salt spray; when all the sky is one grey cloud, and sea mists sweep over the earth at intervals blurring the outline of the hills, that thin but penetrative little sad call seems more appropriate than ever and in tune with Nature and the mind. ”

“ Wind and temperature are the only circumstances affecting the velocity of sound in the air to any extent. Sound travels about four times faster through water than through air, and about ten times faster through solids such as metals and wood than through air. ”

“ The facts of sound readily travelling under water, of solid ice being also a good conductor, and of the quietness of the frozen regions, all tend to render this faculty of the highest service, nay, a necessity, to the creatures possessing it. ”

“ Though the thin and frosty air conveys only the finer particles of sound to our ears, with short and sweet vibrations, as the waves subside soonest on the purest and lightest liquids, in which gross substances sink to the bottom. They come clear and bell-like, and from a greater distance in the horizon, as if there were fewer impediments than in summer to make them faint and ragged. The ground is sonorous, like seasoned wood, and even the ordinary rural sounds are melodious, and the jingling of the ice on the trees is sweet and liquid. ”

“ In all ordinary circumstances, sound is the vibration of air. But in swimming we can hear with our ears [pg 181] under water, and fishes hear without any air. So, to be accurate, we should say that sound is vibrations of any kind of matter. And the vibrations travel better in most other kinds of matter than they do in air. Vibrations move rather slowly in air, compared with the speed at which they travel in other substances. It takes sound about 5 seconds to go a mile in air ”

“ A sudden displacement of the molecules of a medium produces sound which travels in waves at an equal velocity in all directions. An idea of the manner in which sound waves travel may be obtained by throwing a stone in water ”

“ The air that we breathe makes the medium through which sound is conveyed; be the instrument unchanged, be the force which is applied to it the same, still the air that thou seest not, the air to thy ear gives the music. ”

“ Sound-Shadows in Water.—Professor John Le Conte has described in the "American Journal of Science" a course of investigations, which he has made with the assistance of his son, on sound-shadows in water. It is probably within the experience of all that more or less perfect sound-shadows are thrown by hills, buildings, piers, and other obstacles, to the transmission of aerial vibrations. ”

“ It may be fancy, or the effect of contrast, but it has always seemed to me that just as the air is purer and fresher on these chalk heights than on the earth below, and as the water is of a more crystal purity, and the sky perhaps bluer, so do all colours and all sounds have a purity and vividness and intensity beyond that of other places. ”

“ It is a well-known fact in Physical Science, as well as in Occultism, that the aggregate sound of Nature — such as heard in the roar of great rivers, the noise produced by the waving tops of trees in large forests, or that of a city heard at a distance — is a definite single tone of quite an appreciable pitch. ”

“ The attenuated tone-waves of Nature are also inappreciable by the auditory nerves, and an obscure hum or buzz is all that can be perceived, until, finally, the eye detects motion which the ear utterly fails to perceive as sound. The results of the air-waves are appreciable by sight and feeling; but the waves which are heard are not those which create the disturbance in nature we see and feel. The wild gust which seizes a tree and bows it to the earth is only heard when the branches it sways, or the leaves which it rustles, give out a secondary and far more attenuate series of waves. ”