10 HE^^ORT OF THE SECRETARY, 



new apparatus, perfec td with aid from a Hodgkins grant, by means 

 of which it is now posb ilc to measure the intensity of rapidly varying 

 sounds with i n accuracy not hitherto attained. A report of the results 

 of the further experiments of Professor Webster upon the propaga- 

 tion, reflection, and diflracticn of sound, the action of the megaphone 

 and the trumpet phonograph, as well as a verification of the theory of 

 resonators, is awaited later. 



A grant was approved November 28, 1899, on behalf of Prof. Louis 

 Bevier, of Rutgers College, for an investigation of vowel-timbre on 

 the basis of the phonographic record. This research will endeavor 

 primarily to determine: 



1. The characteristic parti.tl tones which differentiate the various 

 timbres recognized by the ear is the vowels of speech. 



2. HoAV these partials varj^ i,i articulate speech, with stress, pitch 

 of fundamental, etc., and in the transition to other sounds. 



This research is still in progress, and will be reported upon more 

 fully, but Doctor Bevier states that the vowels already studied form 

 a series acoustically, quite as truly as phonetically and physioIogicail3\ 



The meteorological investigations with kites have been successfully 

 continued at Blue HiU under the direction of Mr. Rotch with the 

 assistance of a grant from the Hodgkins fund. During the year 

 ending July 1, 1900, sixteen flights were made in four series in order 

 to obtain the changes \v ith height under different weather conditions, 

 the maximum altitude reached being 14,000 feet on June 21. 



In addition to the above investigations a Hodgkins grant has been 

 approved to enable Mr. Rotch to carry on a series of experiments in 

 space telegraphy, it being thought that the unprecedented heights 

 attained by kites might materially extend the range of communication 

 by this method. In the preliminary experiments, however, kites were 

 not used, sufficient elevation being attainable without them, but when 

 the difference between the stations was increased from 1 mile to 3, kites 

 were employed to raise the transmitting and receiving wires. In the 

 later experiments it was found, not unexpectedly, that the long wires, 

 carried up and supported by kites, collected so much electricity as to 

 interfere with and great iy complicate the messages sent from station to 

 station. These interru[>tions seem to show that the limit of elevation 

 for the receiving wire was under these conditions less than 500 feet. 

 The greatest distance co /ered in the experiments was approximately 12 

 miles, from a wire supported by a kite about 200 feet above Blue Hill 

 to the tower of Memorial Hall in Cambridge, which was used as the 

 receiving station. These experiments draw attention to the fact that 

 electrification increases with the altitude to which the wire is carried, 

 and that it is always present, although varying with the meteorological 

 condition of the atmosphere. The experiments were discontinued in 

 the autumn of 1899. 



