August 9, 1907] 



SCIENCE 



171 



Simple levers have been obtained to amplify 

 the disc records accurately to three hundred 

 times and compound levers to one hundred 

 and twenty-five times. The latter is consid- 

 ered to be capable of much improvement. We 

 are all sadly aware that it is one thing to note 

 a precaution, and quite another to observe it; 

 but so far as the technical side is concerned 

 there are probably few psychological or lin- 

 g-uistic problems of equal difficulty that have 

 been approached with greater care. 



The first chapter contains some studies of 

 the vibratory movement of the diaphragms, 

 mainly through optical means. The conclu- 

 sion is reached that the nodal (Chladni) vibra- 

 tions play an inconsiderable part in the dis- 

 tortion of the wave evident in the familiar 

 " twang." 



The diaphragm of the sound-box, however, bends 

 so that there is more or less yielding and motion 

 of the air behind it ... in both gramophone and 

 phonograph the wave is distorted in the manner 

 just described (p. 22). 



The commercial instruments vary a good 

 deal in quality; about one in a hundred. Dr. 

 Scripture thinks, is suitable for experimental 

 purposes (p. 17). Chapters II., III., IV. dis- 

 cuss the apparatus and methods of immediate 

 analysis. Much of this material will be fa- 

 miliar to one who has followed Dr. Scripture's 

 previous work. On pp. 53-4 is described a 

 control apparatus by which any portion of a 

 curve may be reproduced as a gramophone 

 record so as to afford acoustic analysis for the 

 ear. By this means, any curve possible to 

 sketch may be reproduced in terms of its 

 sound. 



The ordinary student of linguistics will find 

 more difficulty in following Dr. Scripture 

 through chapters V.-VII. Their interest must 

 for the present be considered physical and 

 mathematical rather than philological or psy- 

 chological. They are concerned with prob- 

 lems of harmonic analysis, and a new method 

 for dealing with the disturbing factor of fric- 

 tion in the voice-producing apparatus. The 

 two theories of vowel production are discussed 

 in chapter VIII. The Willis-Hermann theory 

 of the varying intensity of the glottal puffs 



and the vowel tones as inharmonics to the 

 glottal tone, is confirmed in these studies. 



The Helmholtz theory of hearing is interest- 

 ingly criticized in chapter IX. Simple har- 

 monic analysis is insufficient to give the tones 

 corresponding to the resonating fibers; the 

 inharmonic frictional analysis alone represents 

 the facts of audition, and this is at present 

 possible only for song. Chapter X. describes 

 methods for the synthesis of vowel vibrations, 

 and chapter XL illustrates the mathematics of 

 vowel analysis; it is intended as a guide to 

 research. Perhaps the main objection to the 

 work is that the correctness of the original 

 gramophone records has been taken too much 

 on faith. There need be no question of the 

 accuracy of Dr. Scripture's reproduction of 

 these curves; but there is room for consider- 

 able doubt as to whether the gramophone rec- 

 ords themselves are faithful representatives of 

 the spoken sounds they are supposed to record. 

 The mere fact that they resyiithesize them into 

 understandable speech is not sufficient. A 

 variant of the method mentioned on page 55 

 might be employed, a gramophone record a 

 making another gramophone record h directly 

 from itself. A visual comparison of the two 

 might give an idea of the accuracy of the re- 

 producer of a and the recorder of h. Other- 

 wise there would seem to be no escape from 

 the tedious method of nonsense syllables, 

 noting whether the errors made in the percep- 

 tion of gramophone speech are analogous to 

 those for normal spoken speech. Until some- 

 thing of this sort is done, there is ground for 

 some caution in the acceptance of this material 

 as representative of actual linguistic facts. 



Frederic Lyman Wells 

 McLean Hospital, 

 Waveeley, Mass. 



SCIENTIFIC JOURNALS AND ARTICLES 

 The American Journal of Science for Au- 

 gust contains the following articles : " Radio- 

 Activity of Thorium Salts," B. B. Boltwood; 

 " Wave-lengths and Structural Relation of 

 Certain Bands in the Spectrum of Nitrogen," 

 E. E. Lawton; "Tertiary Peneplain of the 

 Plateau District, and Adjacent Country, in 



