A. M. Mayer—Researches in Acoustics. 267 
and Fresnel, he says: “And acute suggestion was then, aud in- 
deed a always, more in the line of my ambition than experimental 
illustration.” Young carried his opinion of the secondary im- 
portance of experiment so far as even to object to the increase 
of the fund left by Wollaston to the Royal Society to aid ex- 
perimental inquiries, in these words: “For my part, it is my 
pride and pleasure, as far as I am able, to supersede the neces- 
sity of onpemENe and more especially of expensive ones.’ 
Art. XX VIIL—A redetermination of the Constants of the Law 
connecting the Pitch of a Sound with the Duration of its Resid- 
ual Sensation ; by ALFRED M. MAYER. 
In my “ Researches in ab Paper No. 6,” published in 
this Journal in October, 1874, I gave the result of many exper- 
iments on the durations of the Hcidval sonorous sensations, and 
embodied those determinations in this law: 
53248 
D alan oes a 24) 0001, 
in which D = the duration of the residual sonorous sensation 
corresponding to N number of vibrations per s 
The precise determination of the durations of the residual 
sonorous serine ous are difficult by reason of the complex char- 
acter of the sound perceived when the vibrations of a tuning 
fork are ery iatecmittartdy into a resonator by means of a 
revolving perforated disc; and the difficulty of the determina- 
tion is increased by the fatigue and deadening of the sensitive- 
ness of the ear produced by the beats which enter it from the 
resonator. 
The important applications that have been made of this law 
in the physiology of audition, and in the elucidation of the 
fundamental laws of musical harmony, have made me desire to 
have my determinations reviewed by ears more highly cultivated 
than mine in the appreciation of pitch and of musical intervals, 
and more skilled in the direct analysis of composite sounds into 
their simple component tones. Since my publication in October 
ast, I have had the good fortune to have elicited in Madame 
Bnmna Seiler and in her son, Dr. Carl Seiler, a profound interest 
in my researches. They have ican considerable time in the re- 
determination of soit dlrations of the residual sonorous sensa- 
pape sah eas on physiological acoustics, and unites to educated 
R. Sct.—Tuirp Serres, Vou. IX, No. 52.— 1875. 
18 
