VOL. XLV.j PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 487 



his head a foot under water, he will hear nothing but a boiling din ; and how 

 ever great a noise is made in the open air, the event will be still the same ; and 

 if the air itself be put into the most violent agitation, the person will discover no 

 difference in that sensation of his ears from what he perceived in the stillest 

 water. Hence he concludes water incapable of transmitting sounds. Mr. K. replies, 

 that as fishes are unanimously agreed to be capable of smelling, so, by analogy, 

 it is probable they have hearing ; for odours are conveyed by the air as well as 

 sound. But he thinks the unnatural position of a man's head immerged a foot 

 under water may be some cause for that confused noise, and opposes the experi- 

 mental testimony of Abbe Nollet himself, who went different depths under water 

 to satisfy himself how far sounds could be conveyed in that medium. At 4 

 inches under water he heard the sound of a gun discharged, of a clock 

 striking, and of a hunter's horn: these, repeated at different depths, were 

 heard first at 4, then at 8, afterwards at 18 inches, and lastly at 2 feet. A 

 man's voice was also heard in the same manner. At different depths of 

 water, none of them exceeding two feet, he could perfectly distinguish 

 mixed sounds, when 2 bells were struck, or 2 pipes sounded together. He 

 could distinguish under water, very distinctly, words uttered aloud : and 

 proved this assertion, by declaring, when he came above water, what was said 

 while he was under it. All sounds were heard more faintly, and attenuated ; yet 

 the difference of the sound, at 4 and 18 inches depth, was not answerable to 

 the difference of the depth of water. He observed at first, that momentary 

 sounds were not so well conveyed as continued ; yet he afterwards determined, 

 at the same depth, one tap of a drum-head, as plainly as a continued round. 

 This he thinks was the same in a man's voice, and the sound of a pipe ; but in- 

 genuously owns, he was not fully satisfied in this experiment ; and therefore does 

 not lay so great a stress on its certainty as on the former. 



Lastly, he held his head under the surface of the water, so as barely to cover 

 him ; but he could not hear the clock strike, which was audible in the open air 

 at 45 feet distance, especially on a plain. 



The Abbe therefore concludes, if fishes do not actually hear, it is for want of 

 proper organs, and not because the medium cannot convey sounds. 



Our author mentions the common notion of carp, and other fish, coming out 

 of their holes at the sound of a bell to be fed ; and adds a story, which Mr. 

 Boyle somewhere relates, that near Geneva a man had a fish-pond, whose banks 

 were so high from the plain on which it was, that one could not look over then> 

 into the pond ; and therefore it was impossible the fish could see the person ; yet 

 they were at any time convened at certain sounds by the gardener, in order to 

 be fed, as a creditable person asserts. 



The letter-writer, having made a high partition in a pond, watched while an 

 accomplice behind it made a very great noise, and discharged a gun, in order to 



