CHELTENHAM COLLEGE NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY. 21 
LECTURES: 
“THE EAR AND HEARING,” 
BY DR. E. T. WILSON... 
GR. teks 
= Seo” RB. E. T. Witson kindly gave a most interesting 
uN %. Lecture on “ Hearing and the Ear,” on Dec. 6th, 
and showed an admirable series of Models, ete. 
illustrative of the various points. 
We are indebted to Dr. Wilson for the fol- 
lowing resumé : 
The Special Senses act as feelers to keep 
the ‘ego’ within in touch with the world outside } 
os sn it, HEARING is perhaps the most important as 
a a carrying with it the power of articulate speech. 
To be born deaf implies dumbness in the individual. For Hearing 
it is essential that there shall be a nerve or nerves capable of appreciate 
7 
ing sound. 
What is sound? It consists of vibrations in the air, however sé 
in motion,—and these may be regular as in music, or irregular as in 
noise. When vibrations in music are large we call it a loud note j 
when small, a low or soft note. 
When the number of vibrations are many in a second we term it 
a high note orofa high pitch; when few we term the note low or bass 
The lowest note appreciable is the lowest bass C on the pia 
with 33 vibrations in a second, the highest on the piano is the highes' 
treble C with 4224 vibrations in a second, the highest on any instr 
ment is the piccolo with 4752 vibrations. ; 
Besides intensity and pitch there is the guality or timbre of a no 
by which we can tell the nature of the instrument from which it pr 
ceeds. 
The average human ear can appreciate sounds from 30 vibratio! 
in a second up to 16,000,—some persons go up to 35,000 OF eV 
