PHONOGRAMS. 



1227 



Sauberschwartz found that if one of these was extinguished the quality 

 of the vowel was not much altered, but that when both were shut out 

 the vowel was much changed in quality and approximated to U or 0. 

 Sauberschwartz in general supports Hermann. 



FIG. 439. Pitch of the vowels according to Hermann. 



Boeke 1 of Alkmaar has not only devised an ingenious and most 

 accurate method of obtaining curves from the wax cylinder of the 

 phonograph, but he has applied the Fourierian analysis with striking 

 results in general support of the fixed-pitch theory. 2 The method con- 

 sists in measuring microscopically the transverse diameter of the im- 

 pressions on the surface of the phonograph cylinder, on different 

 (generally equidistant) parts of the period, and in inferring from these 

 measurements the 

 depth of the impres- 

 sions on the same 

 spot, or, in other 

 words, deriving from 

 them the curve of the 

 tone which produced 

 the impression. 



Thus the depth (d) 

 of the impressions on 

 a certain point may be 

 easily deduced from its 

 breadth (b) on the 

 same point. Suppose 

 EGDF to be the trans- 

 verse section of the 

 phonograph marker, 

 and HK the longi- 

 tudinal section of the 

 surface, ACBD the 

 transverse section of 



FIG. 440. 



-Diagram showing Boeke's theory of measurement 

 of depth of curve. 



the groove which the marker ploughs on the wax surface, AB=*l its 

 breadth, CD = d its depth; and FG = ED = 2r, being the diameter of 

 the cylinder; if the axis of the recording marker were tangential to the 



1 ' ' Microskopische Phonogramstudien, " Arch. /. d. ges. PhysioL, Bonn, Bd. 1. S. 297 ; 

 also Proc. Roy. Soc. Edin., 1898. 



2 The writers have to thank Dr. Boeke for unpublished notes on the subject, and also for 

 many interesting analyses. 



