CENTURY III. 113 



in an instant. This may be tried in far greater dis 

 tances, allowing greater lights and sounds. 



210. It is generally known and observed that 

 light, and the object of sight move swifter than 

 sound : for we see the flash of a piece is seen sooner 

 than the noise is heard. And in hewing wood, if one 

 be some distance off, he shall see the arm lifted up for 

 a second stroke, before he hear the noise of the first. 

 And the greater the distance, the greater is the pre 

 vention : as we see in thunder which is far off, where 

 the lightning precedeth the crack a good space. 



21 1. Colours when they represent themselves to 

 the eye, fade not, nor melt not by degrees, but ap 

 pear still in the same strength ; but sounds melt and 

 vanish by little and little. The cause is, for that 

 colours participate nothing with the motion of the 

 air, but sounds do. And it is a plain argument, that 

 sound participateth of some local motion of the air, 

 as a cause &quot; sine qua non,&quot; in that it perisheth so 

 suddenly ; for in every section or impulsion of the 

 air, the air doth suddenly restore and reunite itself; 

 which the water also doth, but nothing so swiftly. 



Experiments in consort touching the passage and 



interceptions of sounds. 



In the trials of the passage, or not passage of 

 sounds, you must take heed you mistake not the 

 passing by the sides of a body for the passing through 

 a body ; and therefore you must make the inter 

 cepting body very close; for sound will pass through 

 a small chink. 



212. Where sound passeth through a hard or 



VOL. IV. 



