THE 



EDINBURGH NEW 



PHILOSOPHICAL JOURNAL 



On the Manner in which Sound is Produced and Diffused. By 

 Sir G. S. Mackenzie, Bart., F.R.S. ; Vice-President of the 

 Royal Society of Edinburgh, &c. Communicated by the 

 Authpr.* 



The science of acoustics has become so unfamiliar, that, 

 while the comforts of the eye, the skin, the palate, and the 

 lungs are in the thoughts of every one, those of the very im- 

 portant sense of hearing, in reference to music and speaking, 

 have been thought scarcely worthy of consideration. So 

 unused have we been to consider the philosophy of sound, — 

 so little has our attention been turned to it of late, either in 

 theory or in practice, — so long have architects been permit- 

 ted to err in the construction of rooms intended for the dis- 

 tinct conveyance of sound to the ear, that we may be justified 

 in reverting to the very rudiments of the science, and in con- 

 sidering, first, whether we know all that can be known in re- 

 gard to the source from whence sound proceeds, or to the 

 cause which draws it from that source. 



It is a groundless expectation, that man is ever to arrive, 

 in the progress of discovery, at the nature or essence of any 

 thing. With respect to sound, therefore, we can do no more 

 than attend to the immediate causes of its production, and 

 to the laws which it obeys in its diffusion. In the present 

 state of our knowledge concerning it, philosophers appear to 

 have entirely rejected the idea of its being a thing sui gene- 



* Read before the Royal Society of Edinburgh on the 20th February 1843. 

 VOL. XLII. NO. LXXXIV. — APRIL 1847. O 



