54 PROCEEDINGS OF THE AMERICAN ACADEMY. 



was consulted by Mr. Haven in regard to their final adjustment. In 

 order to learn the acoustical condition which would accurately meet 

 the requirements of those who were to use the rooms, an experiment was 

 undertaken in which a number of rooms, chosen as typical, were varied 

 rapidly in respect to reverberation by means of temporarily introduced 

 absorbing material. Approval or disapproval of the acoustical quality 

 of each room at each stage was expressed by a committee chosen by the 

 Director of the Conservatory. At the close of these tests, the reverbera- 

 tion in the rooms was measured by the \viiter in an entirely independ- 

 ent manner as described in the paper on Reverberation (1900). The 

 judges were Mr. George W. Chadwick, Director of the Conservatory, 

 and Sig. Oresti Bimboni, Mr, William H. Dunham, Mr. George W. 

 Proctor, and Mr. William L. Whitney, of the Faculty. The writer 

 suggested and arranged the experiment and subsequently reduced the 

 results to numerical measure, but expressed no opinion in regard to 

 the quality of the rooms. 



The merits of each room in its varied conditions were judged solely 

 by listening to piano music by Mr. Proctor. The character of the 

 musical compositions on which the judgment was based is a matter of 

 interest in this connection, but this fact was not appreciated at the 

 time and no record of the selections was made. It is only possible to 

 say that several short fragments, varied in nature, were tried in each 

 room. 



As will be evident from the descriptions given below, the rooms 

 were so differently furnished that no inference as to the reverberation 

 could be drawn from appearances, and it is certain that the opinions 

 were based solely on the quality of the room as heard in the piano 

 music. 



The five rooms chosen as typical were on the second floor of the 

 building. The rooms were four meters high. Their volumes varied 

 from 74 to 210 cubic meters. The walls and ceilings were finished in 

 plaster on wire lath, and were neither papered nor painted. There was 

 a piano in each room ; in room 5 there were two. The amount of 

 other furniture in the rooms varied greatly : 



In room 1 there was a bare floor, and no furniture except the piano 

 and piano stool. 



Room 2 had rugs on the floor, chairs, a sofa with pillows, table, 

 music racks, and a lamp. 



Room 3 had a carpet, chairs, bookcases, and a large number 

 of books, which, overflowing the bookcases, were stacked along the 

 walls. 



Room 4 had no carpet, but there were chairs and a small table. 



