230 OF SOUND AND HEARING. 



A bell hanging in the air gives a far louder and more 

 enduring sound if it be chimed upon with an hammer on 

 the outside, than if it stood fixed, and were in like manner 

 chimed upon with an hammer. And of the more enduring 

 sound the reason is rendered already, because it trembleth 

 longer. But that even the first sound in the hanging bell 

 is more resounding, in the standing less would be further 

 inquired. 



Likewise a drinking cup of silver or of glass that is 

 fillipped, if it be left alone, gives a sound louder and more 

 lasting; but if the foot of the cup be steadied with the 

 other hand, a far duller, and of shorter stay. 



The sound which is yielded in the viol or cittern is 

 plainly not made by the percussion between the finger, or 

 the quill, and the string, or between the finger, or the quill, 

 and the air, but by the finger impelling, and thereafter the 

 string flying back, and in that recoil percussing the air. 

 Therefore when the string is moved with a bow, not by the 

 finger, or a quill, the sound can be continued at pleasure, 

 through the roughness of the string of the bow, which is a 

 little smeared with rosin ; whence it slides not on the 

 string, nor once strikes it, but holds and continually tor- 

 tureth it, out of which motion the sound is maintained. 



It can be taken for an argument that sound is manifestly 

 some kind of local motion in the air, that it so suddenly 

 fails ; because, in all cutting or impulsion of the air, the 

 air quite recovers and restores itself, which also water doth 

 through many circles, albeit not so speedily as the air. 



OF THE CONFUSION AND PERTURBATION OF SOUNDS. 



In the act of sight, visibles from one part impede not 

 visibles from other parts; but all the visibles which offer 

 themselves from every part, lands, waters, woods, the sun, 

 buildings, men, are at once represented to the eyes. But 

 if so many voices or sounds did at once issue from several 

 parts, the hearing should be plainly confounded, nor might 

 distinctly perceive them. 



The greater sound confoundeth the less, that it should 

 not be heard ; but spiritual species, as they speak of a 

 diverse kind from sound, confuse not sound, but altogether 

 and at once hang in the air, the one little or nothing 

 troubling the other; as light, or colour, heat and cold, 

 smells, magnetic virtues; all these together can hang in 

 the air, nor yet do greatly hinder or disturb sounds. 



