6 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [anNO 1 683-4. 



hearing partly has already received, and partly further may receive as great and 

 notable improvements, both with respect to the object, and the organ or 

 medium. 



1. As to the object of hearing, which is sound, improvement has been and 

 may be made, both as to the production, and as to the conveying or propa- 

 gating of sounds. As to the production of sounds, the art of imitating any 

 sound, whether by the voice, or any way by the mouth, or by any sort of in- 

 strument, or any other means, the voice of any animal, or any other sound 

 whatever, is an art that has as much improved direct hearing, as a harmonious 

 sound exceeds a single and rude one, that is, an immusical tone : which art is 

 yet capable of further improvement. The conveying and propagating, which 

 is a kind of conserving, of sounds, is much helped by duly placing the sonorous 

 body, and also by the medium. For if the medium be thin and quiescent, and 

 the sounding body placed conveniently, the sound will be easily and regularly 

 propagated. 



Hence in a still evening, or the dead of the night, a sound is better propa- 

 gated, and to a greater distance. The sonorous bof" must be placed conveni- 

 ently, as near a smooth wall, near water, or a * \, whose surface is even : 

 near a smooth wall, either plane or arched : hence 'in a church, the nearer the 

 preacher stands to the wall, the better is he heard, especially by those who 

 stand near the wall also, though at a greater distance from the pulpit ; those at 

 the remotest end of the church, by laying their ears somewhat close to the wall, 

 may hear him easier than those in the middle. Hence also arise whispering 

 places ; for the voice being applied to one end of an arch, easily rolls to the 

 other. And indeed were the motion and propagation of sounds but rightly 

 understood, it would be no hard matter to contrive whispering places of infinite 

 variety and use. And perhaps there could be no better or more pleasant hear- 

 ing a concert of music, then at such a place as this ; where the sounds rolling 

 along together, before they come to the ear, must consolidate into one ; which 

 becomes a true composition of sounds, and is the very life and soul of concert. 

 If the sonorous body be placed near water, the sound will easily be conveyed, 

 yet mollified ; as experience teaches us from a ring of bells near a river and a 

 great gun shot off at sea; which differ much in the strength, and yet softness 

 and continuance or propagation of their sounds, from the same at land, where 

 the sound is more harsh and more perishing, or much sooner decays. In a 

 plain a voice may be heard at a far greater distance, than in uneven ground; 

 because the sonorous air meeting with little or no resistance on a plane, much 

 less on an arched smooth surface, easily rolls along it, without being hindered in 

 its motion, which is the true cause of its preservation or progression ; and falls 



