THE 



AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SCIENCE 



[THIRD SERIES.] 



Art. I. — Researches in Acoustics ; by Alfred M. Mayer. 



Paper No. 9, containing : 



1 . The Law connecting the Pitch of a Sound with the duration of its Residual 

 Sensation. 



2. The Smallest Consonant Intervals among Simple Tones. 



3. The Durations of the Residual Sonorous Sensations as deduced from the 

 Smallest Consonant Intervals among Simple Tones. 



1. On the Law connecting the Pitch of a Sound with the Dura- 

 tion of its Residual Sensation. 



In October, 1874, I published in this Journal " Paper No. 6 

 of Researches in Acoustics," which contained an account of 

 my attempts to establish the law connecting the pitch of a 

 sound with the duration of its residual sensation. The law 

 given in that paper was the expression of the results of the 

 first experiments, extending through several octaves, ever 

 made on the duration of sonorous sensations. 



Subsequently, in April, 1875, I published in this Journal 

 the results of similar experiments which Madame Ema Seller 

 had made at my request. She made a long series of experi- 

 ments with the same apparatus I had used. Her determina- 

 tions, though agreeing with mine in having approximately the 

 same variation of the residual sensation with the pitch, yet 

 differed considerably in the absolute quantities which she 

 found for the durations of these sensations. That the two 



Am. Jour. Sci.— Third Series, Vol. XLVII, No. 211.— Jan., 1894. 

 1 



