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intelligible when a transverse vibration of the bridge is admitted : 
we found in that case that the damping effect diminished towards 
the right when the clamp is fixed at d and vice versa. By weighting 
the bridge at the top corners the vibration is no longer symmetrical; 
the part which is loaded at the top will vibrate less strongly than 
3. An additional question with regard to the 
two motions of the bridge suggested itself in 
the investigation. In fig. 4 de represents the 
string at rest, be the bridge: when the string 
is deflected to the right (da,/), the tension 
K of the string has a component M at right 
angles to the plane of the bridge and a com¬ 
ponent \ r in the plane of the bridge. When 
the string has its greatest deviation to the left, 
the component M has the same direction as 
before, the component AT the opposite. It follows 
that the bridge completes two vibrations in the 
direction of the string to one vibration of the 
string itself, whereas the motion parallel to the 
bridge has the same period as the string. 
The sound of the violin is produced almost exclusively by the 
vibration of the roof; the string by itself imparts but a very small 
amount of eneigy to the air directly. If we suppose that the sound 
given by the string directly may be neglected in comparison to the 
much stronger sound which is due to the roof, and that the effect 
of the parallel motion ot the bridge may also be neglected as against 
the much greater effect of the transverse motion, all the notes of 
the violin should be an octave higher than the pitch of the string, 
assuming that the strings’ deviate on both sides of the position of 
equilibrium. 
The correctness of this conclusion however did not seem to us 
very probable: presumably if real, this striking fact would have been 
observed and communicated by previous observers. 
We have therefore investigated the question experimentally by 
putting a steel string on a violin and making it vibrate eleetro- 
magnetically. 
We took a steel guitar string and put it in the position of the 
d string. Close to it a small electromagnet of the Romershausen type 
was fixed in a stand about vertically above the string, near the place 
where it is usually bowed. The coil of the electromagnet was in 
