426 Mr. R. H. M. Bosanquet on the Beats 



19. We may notice here incidentally that it is necessary 

 that the resolved primaries should be uniform and steady, in 

 order that the beats exhibited in the resultant forms may 

 retain their regularity. Those who support the Young-and- 

 Smith theory generally have a sort of confused idea that the 

 primaries are modified when superposed into their resultant. 



20. How, then, do the beats of mistuned consonances arise ? 

 They may be regarded as springing from interference of new 

 notes, which arise by transformation, in the passage of the 

 resultant forms through the transmitting mechanism of the ear, 

 before the analysis by the sensorium. 



Experiments. 



21. The engine and bellows* being adjusted to run conti- 

 tinuously and quietly, I began to follow the course of Konig's 

 experiments at the point where he deals with the combina- 

 tions of the note C, following his form not accurately, but 

 with such divergences as the difference in the apparatus sug- 



fested. After going through one or two sets in the way 

 ereinafter described, I concentrated my attention on the ana- 

 lysis of beats, and specially on those of mistuned consonances 

 of the form Jul. It will be seen that after a time I entirely 

 discarded resonators, having convinced myself that, so far as 

 they were concerned, the beats of mistuned consonances, other 

 than unisons, with the beat-notes, difference- and combination- 

 tones of all orders, and, in fact, all that I had to observe, were 

 of a purely subjective nature, and were extinguished by reso- 

 nators properly used, so far as my arrangements enabled me 

 to perceive. 



22. The mode in which I then pursued the observations on 

 the beats of the mistuned consonances in question was, to adjust 

 the notes and leave them sounding uniformly and continuously 

 by the hour together. I then walked about the room listening 

 to the combination in all the various forms in which it pre- 

 sented itself, went outside and came in again, always keeping 

 in view the question, what are the sounds that these beats 

 consist of? 



23. It is hard to believe that a question to which the 

 answer is tolerably simple could be so difficult. Yet it is 

 very difficult; it is one of the most difficult things I ever tried 

 to do, to analyze these apparently complicated sounds into 

 their elements by the ear alone. And when I state my results, 

 I must not be taken to mean that the elements I mention are 

 all that are present. In fact, one of the great difficulties is 

 that there appear to be such a number of different sounds. 



* See Phil. Mag. Oct. 1880. 



