September 24, 1920] 



SCIENCE 



295 



the storm the next day . . . cedar trees, with trunks 

 16 inches through [were found] lying on the upper 

 benches of the mountain, that had been torn up by 

 the roots down in the valley and brought up bod- 

 ily and deposited among the big timber on top of 

 the range. . . . (Postmaster OJcal, Huntsville, Ala.) 

 ... 'A mule was hurled 100 feet against a tree 

 stump, its body pierced by a 2 by 4 scantling; a 

 horse was carried several hundred feet into a patch 

 of wood where it was found the following morn- 

 ing apparently unhurt; a steel range from the 

 Preston home was found 3 miles away in a wheat- 

 field; harrows, plows and other agricultural imple- 

 ments were scattered over the -fields for miles 

 around; a sewing machine was found hanging 

 from a tree limb. . . . (Occurred in the tornado of 

 April IS, in Union County, N. C, according to Mr. 

 G. 8. Lindgren.) 



This list could 'be oontinued indefinitely, 

 and it is presumed that each, locality visited 

 could yield a nuniber of remarkable " freaks." 



The series of articles in the Review is con- 

 cluded by a reprint from the " Physics of the 

 Air,"^ by Dr. W. J. Humphreys on the " Tor- 

 nado and its cause," and a bibliography pre- 

 pared by Professor C. P. Talman, which gives 

 the principal publications containing statis- 

 tics of tornadoes in the United States. 



It is needless to say that the twenty-one or 

 more tornadoes which have been experienced 

 in the United States this spring, have been 

 terribly destructive of life and property. It 

 is estimated that in the tornadoes of March 

 28 killed 163, injured several hundred and 

 destroyed ten million dollars worth of prop- 

 erty. Those of April 20 were even more de- 

 structive of life, there being 229 deaths re- 

 ported and over 700 injured, with a property 

 loss also extending into the millions. This 

 most destructive of storms is so extremely 

 local that even though there may be a wind 

 speed of between two and five hundred miles 

 per hour in the funnel-cloud, this speed falls 

 off so rapidly with distance from the center 

 that the wind may not even be of destructive 

 violence within a few hundred yards. Owing 

 to this extreme localization, the tornado can 

 not be accurately forecast; and if it could, it 



2 Journal of the FranTclin Institute, January, 

 1918, pp. 114-116. 



is so violent that no precautions could be 

 taken except these already observed in locali- 

 ties where it frequently occurs — namely, 

 keeping in readiness the storm-cave. 



C LeRoy Meisinger 



"Washington, D. C. 



SPECIAL ARTICLES 



THE SOUNDS OF SPLASHES 



Under the above title an interesting note has 

 just been published by Professor C. V. Raman 

 and Mr. Ashutosh Dey.^ The authors call at- 

 tention in a footnote to the fact " that the 

 splash of a liquid drop is practically soundless 

 unless the height of fall exceeds a certain 

 minimum." In connection with this remark it 

 seems perhaps worth while to publish a note 

 on a preliminary study of a similar problem 

 which I made in 1915. I have been intending 

 to return to the work, but have been giving my 

 attention to other matters. 



My observations were confined to drops of 

 water falling into water, and were made by 

 ear. They indicate not only a single minimum 

 height of fall within which the drops strike 

 the water silently, but also other greater 

 heights of fall for which the drops enter the 

 water without sound. The boundary between 

 a region in which a drop makes a sound when 

 it strikes and a region in which it does not 

 make a sound when it strikes is very sharp, a 

 fraction of a millimeter difference in the 

 height of fall being sufficient to pass from a 

 drop which falls silently to one which makes a 

 sharp click when it strikes. 



In the figure the results of five experiments 

 are shown. The numbers at the left give the 

 distances in centimeters from the orifice from 

 which the drop fell to the surface of the water 

 below. Each vertical line indicates a range 

 throughout which the drops click when they 

 strike the water. The maximum heights of 

 fall tried are indicated by the horizontal dotted 

 lines. 



It will be seen that in most cases a drop 

 strikes silently if it falls less than about 5.5 

 cm., if it falls more than about 7 cm. but less 



iPft«. Mag. (6), 39, p. 145, January, 1920. 



