JOURNAL 



OF 



NATURAL PHILOSOPHY, CHEMISTRY^ 



AND 



THE ARTS. 



SUPPLEMENT TO VOL. XXX, 



ARTICLE L 



On the Place of a Sound, produced h^ a musical String. In 

 a Letter from Mr. John Gough. 



To. Mb. NICHOLSON. 

 SIR, 



V/ERTAIN experiments and remarks of mine on the Former obser- 

 augmentation of sounds appeared in the tenth volume of ^^^'*'"* referred 

 your Journal; the intention of which communication was 

 to show, that the range of a sound may be greatly extend- 

 ed, by enlarging the vibrating surface, while the magnitude 

 of the impulse remains the same. Among other remarks 

 contained in that paper, a fact is mentioned; which proves, 

 that the audible effect of a musical string varies with the 

 texture of the instrument to which it is attached; or, to 

 use the language of certain writers on acoustics, the force 

 of such a string depends not a little on the conducting 

 power of the frame upon which it is stretched. 



Perhaps this assertion will be called a novelty in the Remarks on the 

 theory of stringed instruments ; for I believe, that the phi- common theory 

 losophers, who have turned their thoughts to the subject, strings,^ 

 are unanimous in maintaining, that the effect, which a vi- 

 brating fibre produces on the ear, proceeds solely from the 

 pulses, excited in the air by the undulatory motioh of the 

 cord. In consequence of this doctrine, they make a mu- 

 sical string to be the seat of the sound which U occasioqs^ 



Supplement. — Vol. XXX, Y vk 



