78 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



With the sense of hearing exercised at its best, I continued the 

 search, but had almost given it up when, upon crossing the room 

 and passing under the chandelier, I thought I heard the jangle 

 above my head. Getting upon a chair, I listened carefully at 

 each one of the glass globes, and finally came to one where I could 

 hear the jangle quite distinctly. Upon looking at this globe care- 

 fully I discovered a very peculiar crack in it. This crack in 

 shape was almost a complete circle, but a small stem or portion 

 of glass at its lower edge held the piece in place, so that it was in 

 condition to respond to the vibrations of that note of the piano 

 with which it was in tune, and in this case it was the one that was 

 being sounded. 



The accompanying sketch will give a very fair idea of the 

 position and shape of this piece of glass at (A). Pressing a finger 

 against it in order to stop its vibrating, and to be quite sure that 



I had found the trouble, I asked the player 

 if she heard the sound then. After several 

 vigorous thumps she was obliged to confess 

 that she did not. Taking away my finger 

 and allowing it to vibrate as before, I asked 

 again, " Do you hear it now ? " The answer 

 this time was, " Yes, it is there yet." Re- 

 moving the globe, I announced the fact that 

 the piano was fixed, much to the astonishment of the player, who 

 found the statement correct. This incident illustrates how even 

 the practiced ear of a musician can sometimes be deceived as to 

 the location of sounds in music to say nothing of the ladies, who 

 would be excusable under such circumstances, as their sense of 

 hearing is not expected to be so perfect as to detect such peculiar 

 phases of sound. 



Another interesting feature of peculiar sound effects is illus- 

 trated by this incident. While this loose piece of glass would 

 respond and vibrate to one note of the piano, no other note would 

 affect it, not even the sharp or flat of the one that caused it to 

 respond. 



If these responding objects, however, were free to vibrate with- 

 out touching anything, such as a violin string, there would be no 

 jangle, for as in the above case the edges of the broken piece of 

 glass touched tliat of the globe, which caused the discordant 

 sound, which I have termed for want of a better name the respon- 

 sive jangle. 



Another case similar to the above occurred in a house where I 

 was once stopping in Nova Scotia. A piano with a bad note was 

 fixed by simply opening an inside shutter of a bay window at 

 the opposite side of a parlor from the piano. The latch of one 

 shutter was lightly resting against the edge of another and 



