May 11, 1900.] 



SCIENCE. 



735 



certain rare cases. Mechanical super- 

 position of harmonic motions has been ob- 

 tained by many elaborate forms of har- 

 monographs or curve tracers. 



Both physicists and physiologists have 

 devoted much attention to the study of the 

 complex curves due to vowels and speech- 

 sounds, working especially by aid of the 

 phonograph. 



Two or three matters of industrial as 

 well as of scientific importance may also be 

 noted, viz, the enormous development of 

 speaking instruments — phonograph, graph- 

 ophone, gramophone ; the adoption by 

 the Piano Makers' Association of the U. S. 

 of the French standard tuning-fork giving 

 A = 435 d. v.; and many improvements in 

 organ pipes and reed stops that show a 

 practical control' over the wind sheet such 

 as the older builders had not obtained. 



IV. And now what are some of the 

 most important problems remaining to he 

 solved f 



1. In pure physics : The simplification of 

 the means for the precise determination of 

 pitch in the ordinary practical cases ; the 

 establishment of convenient standards of 

 intensity, and the perfecting of experimental 

 means of measuring intensities ; the devel- 

 opment of means for the thorough analysis 

 of sounds. 



2. In connection with instruments : The 

 thorough study of the action of the sound- 

 ing board of a piano ; of reeds as actually 

 used in common instruments, and of the laws 

 of the perforated tube as applied in flutes, 

 etc. ; the determination of the quality of 

 tone produced by our common instruments 

 under the conditions occurring in practice. 

 Some day it will be possible to make as 

 thorough and scientific an examination of 

 a musical instrument as it now is of a steam 

 plant or a dynamo. On all the points just 

 noted current statements are inadequate, 

 for the art is now so developed that the 

 knowledge of the laws of vibrating bodies 



to the first approximation only is insufficient 

 for future guidance. 



3. In connection with architecture : the 

 determination of the reflection or absorp- 

 tion coefficient of the various materials 

 used in building for inside walls, with the 

 numerical evaluation of the several factors 

 that influence the acoustic properties of an 

 auditorium ; and the acoustic survey of au- 

 ditoriums, showing the intensity of sound 

 at all points where hearers might be 

 placed. 



4. In connection with practical life, the 

 physicist finds the important problem of fog 

 signals still unsolved. 



5. On the side of psychology and music 

 there may be named the further study of 

 the capabilities and deficiencies of the hu- 

 man ear ; the influence of instruments on 

 musical conceptions ; the historical, psy- 

 chological and practical nature of the scales 

 in use among various peoples; these 

 branches bring our material study into in- 

 timate relations with human development. 



V. In view of the manifold interests that 

 center in the subject of acoustics, scientific 

 and commercial, testhetic and utilitarian, 

 specific and general, it seems strange that 

 neither by endowment in connection with a 

 University, nor by government appropria- 

 tion has pi'ovision been made for a well- 

 equipped acoustical laboratory; for here the 

 same reasons apply that justify similar ex- 

 penditures for so many other branches of 

 science, viz, that the subject is of large im- 

 portance, either industrially or in its rela- 

 tion to past and present human activities ; 

 that the results of investigation would be 

 of value to the community at large, being 

 far wider than could be monopolized by the 

 investigators ; that the necessary expenses 

 are beyond the means of the individual 

 experimenter ; and that nowhere in this 

 country or the world is there any syste- 

 matic exploiting of this field. 



Charles K. Wead. 



