368 SOU 
The messenger approaching to him spake, 
But his waste words return’d to him in vain; 
So sound he slept that nought might him awake. Spenser. 
SOUND, s. [sund, high Dutch, from the ancient Saxon 
j unb, as Killian hath noted: send or sund, saith he. Vet. 
Sax. fretum. Gregory, Posthum. Sund, Su. Goth, fretum, 
vadum angustius, ut transnatari queat, ab Icel. synda, natare. 
Serenius. Wachter is of the same opinion. Gloss. Germ, 
in V. Sund.] A shallow sea, such as may be sounded. 
Wake, 
Behold I come, sent from the Stygian sound, 
As a dire vapour that had cleft the ground. 
To ingender with the night, and blast the day. B. Jonson. 
Him young Thoosa bore, the bright increase 
Of Phorcys, dreaded in the sounds and seas. Pope. 
SOUND, s. [sonde, Fr.] A probe, an instrument used 
by chirurgeons to feel what is out of reach of the fingers..— 
The patient being laid on a table, pass the sound till it meet 
with some resistance. Sharp. 
To SOUND, v. a. [Alem. sondan, maris profunditatem 
explorare, a sund. V. Sound. Sereniusd] To search 
with a plummet; to try depth. 
You are, Hastings, much too shallow 
To sound the bottom of the after-times. Shakspeare. 
To try; to examine. 
To SOUND, v. n. To try with the sounding line.— 
Beyond this we have no more a positive distinct notion of 
infinite space than a mariner has of the depth of the sea, 
where having let down a large portion of his sounding- line, 
he reaches no bottom. Locke. 
SOUND, s. [sepia, Lat.] The cuttle-fish. Ainsworth. 
SOUND, s. [sonus, Lat.] Anything audible; a noise; 
that which is perceived by the ear. 
Come, sisters, cheer we up his sprights, 
And shew the best of our delights; 
Pll charm the air to give a sound. 
While you perform your antick round. Shakspeare. 
Mere empty noise opposed to meaning.—He contented 
himself with doubtful and general terms, which might make 
no ill sound in men’s ears. Locke. —Let us consider this 
proposition as to its meaning; for it is the sense and not the 
sound that must be the principle. Locke. 
O lavish land! for sound at such expence ? 
But then, she saves it in her bills for sense. Young. 
To SOUND, v. n. To make a noise; to emit a noise— 
Trumpet once more to sound at general doom. Milton .— 
To exhibit by sound, or likeness of sound. 
Why do you start and seem to fear 
Things that do sound so fair? Shakspeare. 
To be conveyed in sound.—From you sounded out the 
word of the Lord. 1 Thess. 
To SOUND, v. a. To cause to make a noise; to play 
on, 
Michael bid sound 
The archangel trumpet. Milton. 
To be token or direct by a sound. 
Once Jove from Ida did both hosts survey. 
And, when he pleas’d to thunder, part the fray; 
Here heav’n in vain that kind retreat should sound, 
The louder cannon had the thunder drown’d. Waller. 
To celebrate by sound.—Sun, sound his praise. Milton. 
Sound is the effect produced on our ear by the vibrations 
of matter. It is usually said that this phenomenon results 
from the motion of elastic bodies; but all bodies are elastic, 
and moreover those which have the greatest elasticity, as 
wool, feathers and the like, emit no sounds; so that we may 
fairly leave elasticity out of the calculation. To understand 
the theory of vibrations, it is necessary to observe that all 
bodies in nature are capable of undergoing two movements, 
N D. 
one whereby its situation is permanently changed, another 
in which its parts appear to yield, and then suddenly reta¬ 
liate on the moving force, or, in other words, rebound. 
This is called vibration, and it is guessed that it arises 
from the motion of the atoms, or minute particles of the 
matter upon each other. It is suspected that the impressing 
force alters the sphere of attraction of these particles respec¬ 
tively for one another, and that on the removal of this they 
return to their natural state. Always observing that in this 
return the approach or recession of the particles is carried at 
first too far, and that a succession of rebounds takes place 
until the equilibrium is re-established. Now, since bodies 
vary in their density, or, in other words, in the contiguity 
or remoteness of their atoms, it follows that the vibrations 
they are subject to must also vary. 
Though these vibrations are only perceptible to the 
ear when they are so minute as to be imperceptible to the 
other senses, it Is obvious that they must be of the same 
nature as the slow undulations and reflexions of a wave, or 
the courses and recourses of a pendulum, and thus for clear¬ 
ness sake, and in consonance with the usual practice, we 
shall here consider them. Now the courses of the pendulum 
can only undergo these conditions—it may move faster or 
slower; it may take a short or a long swing; ergo, a vibratory 
body can either undergo large or little vibrations, or slow or 
quick ones, and all other variations are impossible. 
The matter in which we always hear the vibrations is air; 
but fishes have a fine sense of hearing in water, and we per¬ 
ceive the vibration of a body held between our teeth, in 
which case the sound travels through bone. 
The ear distinguishes in sounds, first, its tone, i. e. gravity 
or acuteness is approach to the treble or the bass:—2dly. 
Its loudness. The ear also takes note of the source and the 
distance of sounds. 
As to tone it is easily observable, that to grave sounds 
belong very large and distinct vibrations. We may actually 
see the vibration of the larger strings of the harp or piano¬ 
forte, feel that which arises from the great bass pipes of an 
organ, and hear the alternate movements of rest and action 
in the fading sound of a large bell. Here the vibrations are 
obviously slow ; but the question to be decided is, whether 
the bulk or the slowness of these vibrations causes the gravity 
of the tone. Now, if it were its slowness, how would it hap¬ 
pen, that a string when first twanged should give a grave 
sound, and that it should afterwards ascend three successive 
notes in the scale; the vibratory motion must (according to 
this theory) be more rapid in proportion as the moving powers 
are expended; whereas it is a known law of a pendulum, 
that it is as long performing its smaller as its larger swings ; 
ergo, the string which is a double pendulum, should in its 
latter swings or vibrations get graver, if gravity depended on 
slowness of vibrations, which is contrary to experience. 
If, on the other hand, tone be produced by the largeness 
or smallness of vibrations, every thing is explained. 
The string at first gives a large vibration a grave tone, and, 
as its vibratory motion diminishes, acuter tones. Now, be 
it observed, that however forcibly you strike a bell or twang 
a string, you cannot alter the tone, because no force so 
applied would enab'e the bell to expand itself beyond the 
natural limit of its elasticity, whereas it is easy to conclude 
that velocity of motion should result from excessive force, 
and accordingly the harder the blow, the louder the sound. 
This view explains also why bass notes are louder, other 
things being equal, than treble strings, for the former having 
the largest space to travel in a given time, must move the 
most rapidly ; according to that law of the pendulum before 
laid down, it is louder than the treble. 
It has been erroneously supposed, that the velocity of 
every mass of sound depends on the velocity of its vibra¬ 
tions. If this were the case, it would overturn the preceding 
theory, but it is not consequential. It is obviously one thing 
to impress on a particle of air an impulse which its resistance 
suddenly repels, and to impress on the general mass such an 
impulse as may be swiftest communicated to its extremities. 
Were these motions identical, we should be unable to account 
for 
