160 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 19 32 



subcommittee appointed in 1929 by the Aeronautical Research Com- 

 mittee. To both these bodies I am indebted for permission to refer 

 to certain of the problems investigated. 



Noise occasioned by the frequent repetition of street cries, cab 

 whistles, etc., is frequently the subject of local by-laws, which impose 

 penalties for infringement. The Middlesex County Council is seek- 

 ing powers next session to deal with excessive, unreasonable, or un- 

 necessary noise, on much the same lines as other nuisances are dealt 

 with under the public health act. Several towns, for example, Edin- 

 burgh and Stocld:on-on-Tees, have recently taken steps to obtain 

 similar powers. 



City noises are, of course, no new thing, and no doubt London, 

 ever since it became a big city, has always been noisy in its business 

 thoroughfares. Steel tires and horseshoes on cobbles or stone or 

 granite sets w^ere very noisy combinations in Victorian times, as 

 may still be verified in certain industrial towns. Asphalt or wooden- 

 surfaced roads and, above all, pneumatic tires must have brought 

 great relief. 



But to-day is a machine age with noise as one of its by-products, 

 and the volume of traffic through busy streets is now such as to 

 create a background of noise, the level of which is brought home by 

 a stroll through the city on Sundays, or even more on the occasion 

 of the two minutes' silence on Armistice Day. 



Among the sufferers from the growth of traffic noise are schools 

 in busy thoroughfares, which find that classrooms fronting on the 

 street are well-nigh unusable, unless windows are kept closed to 

 the detriment of ventilation. By reason of the volume of industrial 

 and other traffic which now flows through the High in Oxford, many 

 rooms in adjacent colleges have become almost impossible for lectur- 

 ing, study, or examinations. Conversation and telephoning are mat- 

 ters of difficulty in many city offices. Some London hospitals are in 

 extremely busy streets, and the steady " grumble " of the traffic roar, 

 combined with the more trying irregular outbursts of constituent 

 noises, must be prejudicial to the welfare of some, at any rate, of the 

 patients. Nature has unfortunately not equipped the ears with a 

 device for excluding sound during sleep, in the same way as she has 

 provided eyelids for resting the eyes. 



According to the New York commission, many motor horns are 

 unnecessarily loud — some of them, it is stated, can be heard 10 

 miles away in the quiet of the country. However, those who like to 

 reflect on the good old daj^s may care to recall that the giant horn by 

 which Alexander the Great called his armies together is; reputed to 

 have had much the same range. 



