Dr. A. M. Mayer's Researches in Acoustics. 261 



The curve S shows Madame Seller's determination of the 

 residual sonorous sensations ; M shows mine. It is evident 

 that the meandering, undecided curve, C, cannot be the 

 expression of a law, and that the data I and I' cannot be 

 combined with those contained in the curve S, or in the 



Fisr. 1. 



12 8 



UT 3 



SOL 3 



UT 4 



Ml 4 



SOI4 



UT 3 



256 



1%L 



512 



640 



768 



1024 



Ml 5 



12 80 v.cl. 



curve M. In a general way the curve shows that the 

 smallest consonant interval of two tones contracts as the 

 pitch of the tones, forming the interval, rises. 



The physicists Mr. Alexander J. Ellis and Professor 

 J. A. Zahm have discussed the bearing of the law (as given 

 by the experiments of 1874 and 1875) on the elucidation of 

 many facts in consonance and dissonance, to which I referred 

 in my paper of 1874"*. 



On the Duration of the Residual Sonorous Sensation. 



The duration of a residual sonorous sensation is really the 

 duration of the entire period in which a sensation of sound 

 is perceived after the vibrations outside of the ear, giving 

 rise to that sensation, have ceased to exist. While the total 



* See Ellis's translation, of 1875, of Helmholtz's Die Lehre von den 

 Tonempfindungen, pp. 17-3, 701, 795, and Ellis's " Illustrations of Just and 

 Tempered Intonation," Proc. Musical Assoc, of London, June 7, 1875 j 

 Zahm, ' Sound and Music,' Chicago, 1892. 



Phil. Mag. S. 5. Vol. 37. No, 226. March 1894. T 



