60 SECTION PHYSICS. 



such as you get in the lowest stopped diapason pipes ot an organ ; 

 but if this is what he means by saying that you cannot hear simple 

 pendular vibrations below forty-one, he is simply saying that you 

 cannot carry the stopped diapason down below forty-one vibrations, 

 a much less extensive statement than to say that the ear cannot 

 distinguish sounds below that. As a matter of fact, all the extreme 

 bass instruments we make use of, perhaps unfortunately, have the 

 upper partials very strong ; strong compared to the foundation note, 

 but you can intensify the fundamental note by certain contrivances, 

 especially those of consonance. On this I have spent a great deal of 

 time myself. I have tried on a double bass. The double bass has 

 been often before made to produce very low notes, and there is one, 

 quite gigantic, on the other side of the building, which requires 

 giant to play it; the present race of pigmies had to stand on a 

 a table. It produces a very fine tone in the low notes, but it would 

 not suit this generation ; it needs sons of Anak to play upon it. 

 Other attempts have been made to produce the low tone, by making 

 the strings thicker ; but then you cannot get at the centre of gravity 

 of a cylindrical string ; you must strike at the outer circumference, 

 and these large strings rotate and produce false notes, not at all 

 the tone that is wanted. There remained one thing which had not 

 been clone, and that is to work by weight. By covering the string very 

 heavily with copper wire, and placing it on the double bass, I 

 succeeded in getting a sound which I thought satisfactory. The tone 

 contains a great predominance of 1 6-foot vibration. I had to 

 strengthen the double bass very considerably by what I term elliptical 

 tensicn bars, so as to give it, in the first place, force enough to resist 

 the enormous pull of this heavy string, and secondly to give it a 

 sound-conductor. There was already a bar from end to end which 

 tended to counteract the dumbing effect of the "S" holes, which are 

 necessary, however, for letting out tha air vibrations. If you will 

 permit me to add presently to my unmusical illustrations, I think I 

 can obtain a note from the double bass, which you will say is musical. 

 Another attempt was in the wind department. We have here an 

 instrument which some of you may know I habitually play, especially 

 with Sir Michael Costa's orchestra. I played it the other night at the 

 Albert Hall. It is a reed instrument of 16 feet in length, the octave 



