8 



Dr. R. Konig on Manometric Flames. 



Representation of Sounds, 



The apparatus which is used for the representation of sounds 

 consists simply of a manometric capsule, before the membrane 

 of which there is a small cavity terminating in a short tube 

 (fig. 6) . The sounds to be represented must be conducted into 



Fig. 6. 





this cavity with the smallest possibleloss of their intensity and 

 without undergoing any change in their passage. 



The sound-pictures of the combined tones of the same instru- 

 ment are never all alike, but the deepest tones always show much 

 larger and more complicated flame-groups for each single vibra- 

 tion of the fundamental than the higher ones, because the high 

 harmonic tones, which are to be heard in the sound of the deeper 

 tones of the instrument, disappear more and more as the funda- 

 mental ascends. Thus the higher the tone the smaller in com- 

 parison are the dimensions of the means which produce it. The 

 vibrations of all resounding instruments, however, take a simpler 

 form if the dimensions of the latter are very small, because the 

 different bodies lose their capacity of forming subdivisions in 

 vibration, by which the accessory tones, if not exclusively, yet 

 in many cases are chiefly produced. 



A second reason, however, and that a very potent one, is this. 

 If the tones are produced not so much by the elastic vibrations 

 of a body as rather by gusts of air, as in the siren and pandean 



