LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA. GIFT OF Class e 15 GIFT SOUND BY JOSEPH BATTELL AUTHOR OF "THE MORGAN HORSE AND REGISTER" IN 3 VOLUMES, "AMERICAN STALLION REGISTER" IN 6 VOLUMES, "ELLEN OR WHISPERINGS OF AN OLD PINE" IN 3 VOLUMES, "THE NEW PHYSICS," &c., &c. 224671 THE following article, which is a complete demonstration of the corpuscular theory of Sound that no one will ever be able to answer or overthrow, was sent to the Scientific Ameri- can at New York, in answer to a correspondent, whose question, wrongly explained by the editor, appears at the beginning of the article. We enclosed stamped envelope with request that our article be returned at once if not used. After a number of days it was returned with the following note : " Your letter of March 1 7 has been received. It seems to us that your theory as outlined is quite untenable. MUNN & c< ^ gec; , We have been too busy ourselves to refer to this until now, but take this opportunity to call the attention of the Secretary, to our offer that has been standing since 1901, repeatedly in- serted in the leading journals, scientific and otherwise, of the world, and also made permanent by insertion in The New Physics, of $2000, to the first person who can prove the un- dulatory theories to be true, and the scientific explanation of the action of Sound in a telephone to be true, which ex- planation the Scientific American here gives to its correspondent. In addition, we will give the Secretary of the Scientific American, who writes us, $500 cash if he can prove that our explanation is not true. Here is an opportunity to earn enough money to buy a good house, or small farm ; and if it was a possible thing to prove 2 SOUND either contention, there would be thousands attempting to do it. Or if the undulatory theories were true, the scientists having been studying and teaching them for years, should be able to demonstrate them in a few minutes. Of course there will be no response to this offer, but the farce will go on worse than farce, the CRIME, of continuing to teach to a vast number of our youth, hypothetical principles, which are not only absolutely false, but in the nature of things impossible. Editor of Scientific American. DEAR SIR: Under "Notes and Queries" in the Scientific American of Jan. 15, is a request by E. R. S. (12173) for you to decide how Sound is transmitted by telephone. Your reply gives the usual explanation. But is it true? In a work entitled "THE NEW PHYSICS," which we have recently published, we have demonstrated that Sound is cor- puscular, composed of infinitesimal particles of electrical matter made by shock instantaneously in the colliding bodies, from which it is conducted by the air, or otherwise, to the ears of sentient beings, producing the sensation of Sound. That is, Sound is composed in part of electricity, which unquestionably furnishes it with its moving force. Perhaps the fundamental blunder in the old theory was in supposing that vibration, as in a tuning-fork after it is struck, made sound, the truth being that always, in such cases, it is the sound that makes vibration. Sound itself never vibrates. It makes as straight 'course as a running horse, unless impeded ; with a speed in air, as is well known, of about 1090 feet a second. The vibration of the prongs of a tuning-fork, takes place because the sound made in the fork by shock,- is impeded in its flow, unable readily to get TELEPHONE 3 out of the fork, and therefore, as in the case of echoes, it is constantly thrown or reflected from side to side, thus produc- ing the vibration. Sound is a fluid as may be proven in five minutes by anyone, by placing the stem of a vibrating tuning-fork upon a wooden (or any other) conductor. Immediately the sound will flow from the fork into the conductor, and be carried by it, if in sufficient quantity, many rods, at a speed varying with the quality of the conductor. In conductors of certain kinds of wood, it will go 14 times faster than in air, and therefore if the stem of the vibrating fork is placed upon one end of such conductor, and the other end is held in the teeth of a person, or placed in contact with the bones of the head or body, such person will hear this sound fourteen times quicker than if it was con- ducted through the air. This demonstrates that the sound is made instantaneously and complete in the bodies struck; for this sound, thus delivered, has never entered the air, although 'precisely the same as that which goes from the same fork through the air to the ear, each starting at the same time. The action of Sound in a telephone wire is very simple; the sound enters the transmitter and passes into a quantity of grains of carbon, which, enclosed in a small metal box, fo'rm a part of the circuit, and thence the sound enters into the broken or variable electric current, made so in passing through the car- bon, when instantly it is carried by it, as saw-logs are by a river; and this means with the speed of the stream, whether a river or electricity. At the receiving instrument proper arrangements are provided for the sound to leave the current. These consist of an insulated copper wire which forms a connection with the main wire and the receiving instrument. The sound is thus delivered to the receiver, where, by the aid of a magnet and two helixes wound with very fine insulated wire, it emerges into a small space very close to a thin circular iron diafram, which 4 SOUND collects and reflects it to the ear very similarly as a stove collects and reflects heat. And this is the function of the diafram, nor can it make Sound any more than a stove can heat, or a pipe the water which it throws off. The means used to bring sounds into the receiver are similar to those used for carrying logs where they are wanted, a separate stream or channel into which either logs or sound can be conducted from the main current or stream to any point of destination desired. In either case some artificial aid is necessary, especially if river and wire extend further. In that case some of the sound and logs go by, or may, and some are stopped. These facts in regard to the conditions necessary at trans- mitter and receiver should be sufficient to decide the essential nature of Sound. In our scientific work "Ellen," Volume II. of which was pub- lished 1908, we quote at length from a paper entitled "Trans- mission of Sound by JLoose Electrical Contact," read before the Royal Society of Edinburgh by James Blythe, M. A., July 27, 1879, in which Mr. Blythe says (Part II., p. 549) : * In a paper published in the Transactions of this Society for Session 1877-78, I described an experiment which showed that if a moderately strong current such as that from four or five Bunsen cells be led through two jam-pots filled with fragments of carbon, and if any sound be uttered strongly in the one jam pot it will be reproduced distinctly, although faintly, in the other. In this experiment it has been found that the fragments of carbon may be replaced by any kind of loose contact, such as microphones, or a handful of screw-nails put into each jam-pot, or vibrating springs beating against metallic stops, or nails laid across each other in log-hut fashion, and that in each case an affect similar in kind, although it may be differing greatly in degree, is pro- duced. Hence it may be almost laid down as a general experimental result, that if an electric circuit conveying a tolerably strong current contain two places of loose contact, A and B, and if any sound be pro- duced loud enough at A a similar sound will be heard from B. ********* 'To all appearance this phenomenon can only arise from the altered VARIETIES OF SOUND 5 resistance produced at A by the sound waves, and it becomes a prob- lem to explain how this altered resistance at A so affects the materials in contact at B as to make them give forth waves which convey a simi- lar sound to the ear. No satisfactory solution of this problem has as yet been given, and it was in hopes of getting some information on the subject that I made the following experiments.' The experiments following are very interesting and instruc- tive, but altogether too long to be repeated here as they occupy nearly five pages. It would of course be impossible to explain any of these experiments by the undulatory theory of sound. By the corpuscular they explain themselves. As all the sounds of the world are made by the bodies of the world, and every different body makes a different sound, these bodies must contain the necessary machinery to do this, and evidently this machinery connects with the interstices of bodies, which in most bodies are different. In the case of uni- son vibration bodies are alike, and therefore sound made in one body, under favorable circumstances, will circulate in a similar one, and cause it to Vibrate. The principle being similar to that which enables the same key to unlock similar locks. Mills by machinery make varieties of things, the difference of which come from the differences of the machinery and material used which makes them, but this material is distinct from the mill. Thus with woolen mills, silk mills, marble or any kind of stone mills, mints for making coin, or any kind of factory for manufacturing any kinds of goods. It is self- evident that things cannot be made without material to make them of, nor can they without the proper machinery to make them. Neither is the machinery prepared to furnish such material. Its part is to shape or mix the material. And thus it is with Sound. It is made by machinery from material produced by shock ; and the machinery consists of bodies causing the shock, that is, the material produced 6 SOUND by shock is so mixed and shaped by the bodies whose collision produces it, as to make the different varieties of Sound. And because of its differences it affects the soul differently, when introduced into the body, as different kinds of food or drink do. All of these laws thus controlling material things and their influence upon the spiritual, are fixed and universal. Their general nature, too, is easily understood ; though how or why the material should affect the spiritual as it does, still remains a mystery. Apparently upon a sphere like ours it takes the two to make individual existence. In all material things there is a succession of causes culmin- ating with the fundamental cause, creation by Deity; and this last would appear to be creation of a few elementary substances, which by combination in different proportions make all the others. The eminent French scientist Papillon, who first demonstrated that odor was corpuscular (which previously like light and sound had been considered undulatory), says: " What, now, is the chemical nature of the odorous principles in plants? The chemistry of to-day reduces almost all of them to three categories of well-ascertained substances : hydrocarburets, aldehydes, and ethers. We will endeavor to give a clear account of the constitu- tion of these three kinds of substances, and to mark their place in the register of science. The hydrocarburets are simple combinations of carbon and hydrogen, as, for instance, the petroleum-oils. They rep- resent the simple compounds of organic chemistry. As to aldehydes and ethers, their composition is rather more complex ; besides carbon and hydrogen, they contain oxygen. ******** "Independently of the alcohols, which are of great number and varying complexity, organic chemistry recognizes another class of bodies, of which vinegar is the type, and which receive the name of organic acids, to mark their resemblance to mineral acids, such as oil of vitriol or aqua fortis. Now every alcohol, on losing a certain amount of hydrogen, gives rise to a new body, which is called an aldehyde ; and every alcohol, on combining with an acid, produces what is called an NATURE OF ODORS 7 ether. These rapid details allow us to understand precisely the chemi- cal character of the essences or essential oils which plants elaborate within their delicate tissues. Except a small number among them which contain sulphur, as the essences of the family of crucifers, they all present the same qualitative composition carbon and hydrogen, with or without oxygen. Between one and another of them merely the proportion of these three composing elements varies, by regular gradations, but so as always to correspond either to a hydrocarburet, or to an aldehyde, or to an ether. In this case, as in almost the whole of organic chemistry, every thing is in the quantity of the com- posing elements. The quality is of so little importance to Nature, that while following always the same laws and constantly using the same materials, she can by merely changing the ponderable relations of the latter, produce, by myriads of various combinations, myriads of sub- stances which have no resemblance to each other. ******* " Such is the chemical nature of most of the odorous principles of vegetable origin. But chemistry has not stopped short with ascertain- ing the inmost composition of these substances ; it has succeeded in reproducing quite a number of them artificially, and the compounds thus manufactured, wholly from elements, in laboratories, are absolutely identical with the products extracted from plants." As we have shown, sounds, like odors, are made from com- binations of matter, produced or collected by shock, their particular quality being" determined by the bodies colliding, in each of which a particular sound is produced, and always the same or similar sound by the same or similar body. It follows, as we have also shown, that the function of shock is to produce material from which different sounds all sounds are made. We know, Jtoo, that the differences of the sounds all sounds depend upon the construction of the body or bodies, in the collision of which the material of sound is pro- duced. And thus the colliding bodies subserve two uses, first, to produce the material from which sound all sound is made ; and second, to so mix this, or shape it, that when introduced into the body, which is generally by the ear, constructed, as any person can see, so as to catch or gather these sounds, 8 SOUND it will affect the soul in a certain manner, every different sound differently. And this, as we have said, is precisely what every combina- tion of matter does when introduced in the body, as illustrated by the different things we eat or drink. It is the one and only law by which personal existence takes place in material conditions. We refer to the different sounds being shaped by the differ- ent bodies, because, as proved by the effect of sound upon water, these particles of sound vary in size with the pitch. (See "THE NEW PHYSICS," pp. 234-235). The diafram will make a very plain sound when struck, which it might possibly repeat by so-called unison vibration, which means that a sound made by one body under favorable circumstances, will enter a similar body and cause it to vibrate, as it did the body in which it was made. In this case the body thus vibrating in unison does not make any sound, any more than a pond makes the water which it collects and throws off, but, because of its vibration, may throw off the sound that has entered it, and which was made by shock and shaped by a similar body to itself. That the diafram, or anything else, can make any sound except what it was made to make, and is furnished with the machinery to make, cannot be entertained by anyone that un- derstands correctly the methods used by Nature for the accom- plishment of her phenomena. There is but one known law by which material things are made, and this is by a combination of ingredients, chemically and otherwise. The law is a universal one, and unlimited in its capacity. For always if something is added or withdrawn from a previous combination, a new commodity is made. The character of this law may be easily perceived in cooking, where the addition of even a pinch of salt changes somewhat each article of food. ACTION OF DIAFRAM 9 The same principle works in construction, whether of build- ings, or utensils. The connection of certain things in a certain way, always producing a certain result, which is always adapted to certain purposes. Thus musical instruments are made and all other instruments, or machinery. And so, too, all the phenomena of the material world, whether large or small, a planet or a building, a flower or tree, sound, odor, electricity or a beam of light, are formed. The physical eye cannot directly see all these, though it can, practically, in watching, their effects, but the mind's eye grasps the whole, that nature has only one law, that of combination, by which the material universe is produced ; certain substances being first created, from which all the rest are made by different combinations. And the mind, too, grasps this fact that there is absolutely no limit to the variety of things which may be created under this law. " Behold the lilies, how they grow: They toil not, neither do they spin ; and yet I say unto you, that Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these." A few moments thought will show the extreme folly of sup- posing that the diafram, or any other instrument, could repeat the sounds heard at a telephone. Theoretically this would mean all sounds, not only those which now take place, but all that ever did take place, or ever will ; that it should sing like Jenny Lind ; or talk like Daniel Webster, and indeed repeat all the sounds of a universe as perfect as they are made in nature ; not only every voice, but the intonations of every voice ; and not only this but theoretically again it would have to be able to make many of them at the same time. For the music of an orchestra of many instruments can be delivered by telephone very perfectly, at the same time. It would make quite a job for an ordinary diafram ; and this is supposed to take place without any material to make any thing, or any required. Take the tongue out of a bell, the move- ment of the rope for the creation of sound would be in vain ; it 10 SOUND being the shock between the tongue and bell, that makes the sound. There is absolutely nothing in a diafram to make any but one sound, and that a very plain one, although it can gather sound, as a stove does heat, or a pond water. The supposition that it could make sound, was made necessary by a mistaken theory of the nature of sound, more foolish, if possible, than the explanation it called forth. Certainly, if it was true, it would be a simple thing to gather grapes from thorns or figs from thistles. It is, then, evident that the sounds 4 heard at a telephone must be brought by the electric current from the sending instrument, wherever that may be, either with or without a wire. That this is so is very readily proven, nor is there anything more remarkable about it than that any substances should be carried by streams. For a few experiments will prove that however remarkable it may at first seem that the voice or any other sounds should be able to go through a wire, there is really no difficulty at all in their doing it. They will go through a wire as easy as a duck will swim. This may be shown by the old box and wire or string telephone, where, with very little arrangement, they did do it. This telephone has been in use for hundreds of years ; the only practical difference between it and the modern is, that an electric current has been added, which enables the message to be sent much faster and therefore, for its life is brief, much further.* * In Vol. II., of "Ellen," Part II., pages 613 640, is a very valuable chapter of various experiments and facts obtained by a number of the leading Scientists of Europe, and given by Count de Moncel, Membre de L'Institut, in his book, "The Telephone, The Microphone and The Phonograph," translated and published by Harper Brothers, 1879. These prove that a telephone without a diafram can readily reproduce speech. They prove, too, that all explanations of the telephone which had been made to that time were wholly unsatisfactory, the only thing certain, as these gentlemen reported, being, " If you stopped the current you stopped the Sound." This fact, as well as all others connected with Sound, is fully and most naturally ex- plained by the corpuscular theory, but entirely unexplainable by any other, as repeat- edly shown by above experiments. TRANSMISSION OF SOUND II Supposing the sound in the wire, it is impossible to see how it could avoid being carried by the current, the same that it is carried by the wind. Experiments show that a dozen different sounds, more or less (our experiments were tried with three), will run up the point of the finest needle to a person's head, if such needle point is fastened to a deal stick, the other end of which is held by the teeth, and the point of the needle touches a sounding board, upon which the stems of that number of sound- ing forks rest. These sounds do not mix, but each is heard dis- tinct, no matter where the needle touches the board, but if it does not touch not a sound will be heard. This experiment proves that the particles of sound are of wonderfully small size, and is also a demonstration that they exist, for if they did not they could not ascend the needle. It makes no difference upon what part of the sounding board the needle is placed, as the sounds cover it as completely as a stream of water would. Perhaps we cannot better illustrate the possible smallness of such particles than to quote a sentence from the late address of Sir Joseph Thomson, professor of Physics of Cambridge University, England, and President of the British Association of Science in Canada, made lately before that Society at Win- nipeg. It will be seen that he is satisfied that electricity is corpuscular, which hitherto has been considered by scientists to be undulatory. Mr. Thomson says : "We have already made considerable progress in the task of dis- covering what the structure of electricity is. We have known for some time that of one kind of electricity the negative and a very interest- ing one it is. We know that negative electricity is made up of units all of which are of the same kind ; that these units are exceedingly small compared with even the smallest atom, for the mass of the unit is only TrVtr P art f t* 16 mass of an atom of hydrogen ; that its radius is only TV 13 centimetre, and that these units, "corpuscles," as they have been called, can be obtained from all substances. The size of these corpus- cles is on an altogether different scale from that of atoms ; the volume of a corpuscle bears to that of the atom about the same relation as 12 SOUND that of a speck of dust to the volume of this room. Under suitable conditions they move at enormous speeds which approach in some instances the velocity of light." In the above Prof. Thomson admits that electricity is cor- puscular, for if so-called negative electricity is corpuscular, positive electricity must be, and the same must also be true of Magnetism, Heat and Light. Thus, too, Mr. William J. Hammer, the first man to intro- duce radium into this country, in a lecture delivered before the American Institute of Electrical Engineers and the Amer- ican Electro-chemical Society, said, we quote from the New York Times of Jan. 23, 1910: "Lord Kelvin, meeting Becquerel shortly after the final discovery, said to him that the discovery of the Becquerel radiations had placed the first question mark against the principle of conservation of energy, which had been placed against it since that principle was first enunci- ated. What reconstruction it may make in our knowledge of inter- atomic energy cannot as yet be even faintly surmised. " When one considers the remarkable effects produced by radium, it would almost seem that it is matter tearing itself into tiny pieces, and projecting these infimtesimally small particles through all matter at a speed from half to even the full speed of light, and rendering all sub- stances about it radioactive, and still without appreciable weight lost in the original substance, and, without disparagement of the accepted wave theory of light, one naturally harks back to Newton's corpuscular theory of light." JOSEPH BATTELL. THE GRAPHOPHONE RECORD. The tmdulatory theory was conceived before it was known that Sound was conducted by any medium except air. Even under such circumstances it was a very superficial and essen- tially incorrect theory, because assuming that something similar to water waves, which are only possible upon the surface of a fluid, takes place in the body of a fluid. And because not in accord with the universal law of Nature in the construction of material things, whether sensations or otherwise. But when it was known that Sound flowed in almost any medium, and in many much faster than in air, the undulatory theory became so monstrously impossible, that the only excuse imaginable for continuing it is repugnance to admit error, and temporary financial loss to teachers and authors or publishers of text-books. This last will remedy itself very quickly. And doubtless the study of Physics, when founded upon fact, will become greatly extended and far more remunerative to those interested in their, instruction. There is one lucky circumstance in errors of this kind, that although they impede, they do not permanently obstruct the advance of practical knowledge. The forces of invention and improved scholarship will continue their triumphs, both indif- ferent and regardless of errors that are always retarding Science ; the result of leaders incompetent to lead. A similar trouble constantly occurs with armies; so that frequently, no matter how large they may be, nothing but disorder takes place, when war comes, sometimes for years until a competent 14 SOUND leader, there are but few of them, comes to the front. This was Illustrated in the last English war with the Boers ; the last Russian one with Japan ; the last French war with Germany. Then comes the reaction. Common Sense asserts itself once more, and an era of real discovery follows. " Good sense, which is the gift of Heaven, And though no science fairly worth the seven." And therefore we have the telegraph, telephone and grapho- phone, and many other inventions, purely the result of inventive genius, which gives but little regard one way or the other to the theories of Science. The graphophone is a wonderful illustration of practical results obtained regardless of any theory. This, it is true, can be at once completely and satisfactorily explained by the corpuscular theory of sound, and by no other, but its invention did not come from knowledge of that theory, or any other. Like Topsy it grew. We should be much pleased if Mr. Edison would explain exactly how. We refer to it now, though, to say that it alone will demon- strate the falsity of the undulatory theory of sound, and there- fore of all undulatory theories. Only a substance of remark- able power for its size could make these indentures. We know it is done by sound, because it is always the result of sound., and this record, when struck, will reproduce the sound that was known to make it. Then must sound be a sub- stance of remarkable power for its size ; and as the sound, which arises from a single collision, for quite a distance will fill the atmosphere, as illustrated by particles that pass from it into many ears situated at many points in all directions, its separate particles must be infinitely small. But sound has been proven to be composed, in part, of elec- ricity, the most powerful substance of which we have knowl- THE GRAPHOPHONE RECORD 15 edge, able when it strikes a tree to rend its trunk, and thus often killing it. Besides we know that sound, whilst it lasts, is always moving. And therefore we can easily account for the fact, which is proven, that the particles of such a fluid carve such indentures in the paraffine and wax. We find, too, by experiment, that it makes no difference when the collision takes place so long as the indentures remain intact; by shock they will produce sound, and this sound every time the collision is repeated, will be similar to that which made the indentures. Like a piano that always, when struck, returns the same sound, so these indentures, and every other sound-producing instrument, if struck, will return the same sound. That like will produce like is a ge'neral law in nature, but in the graphophone record it is both unexpected and remark- able, occuring in sound carried to the third generation. And this means that sound is composed of infinitesimal particles of matter, with such force of movement imparted to them that they will produce a body, infinitely smaller it is true, but other- wise of similar form or shape as the body which molded them. The principal of a mold in material things is well known. We copy from the Encyclopaedic Dictionary : " Mold. A general term for patterns to work by, where the outline of the thing to be made has to be adapted to that of the pattern ; also applied to various things containing cavities, either for casting in, as a bullet mold, or for producing various forms by beating or pressure." A mold to shape another body, as for instance sound, must itself be of a sufficiently solid substance to impress its form upon this other body. And the material to be molded must be sufficiently plastic to receive it. And this is the case with the graphophone record. The indentures when struck make a sound similar to the sound that made them, which proves from the principle that like produces like, that they are I 6 SOUND similar to the body making this sound ; that is, to the original sounding body. And we will show later that this similarity consists in shape or form. These indentures in the paraffine and wax, answer to molds, each one a separate mold, which, when struck, repeats the sound that made it. From the transference of records made by sound upon a wax disc to another disc of different substance, by an electrotyping process, it becomes certain that the variety of each particular sound is decided by the shape of the colliding bodies. For they are sufficient when coming into collision with another body, as the reproducer, to emit sounds, produced by the only law by which sounds are created, shock. Nor, so great is the principle of order in the universe, in all of Nature's laws are there ever two ways to produce exactly the same thing. In all cases things may be of different sizes, according to the amount of material that is used. Thus we may have what we call a small chair or a large one, a small table or a large one, a small candlestick or a large one. And so we can of everything. For everything is of a certain shape, and is named after its shape, but it may be very large or very small infinitely large or infinitely small. The ordinary grapho- phone indentures are very small bodies, and it is impossible for them to produce as much sound as larger ones of the same, or perhaps different substance. But nature provides certain artificial aids in sound as the megaphone, or ear trumpet; and in vision the telescope and microscope ; to make up for such deficiencies. And this in all cases is the explanation of like producing like, whether it refers to sound, vision, or the reproduction of the species in animals or plants. The same is true with fruits or planets. That is, the causes which produce the same effects are always alike. Seeds are but minute arrangements for the growth of plants THE GRAPIIOPHONE RECORD or bodies, in either case the growth being material, and in all their wonderful results acomplished by additions of matter. And all material combinations affect the spiritual. But always, too, they so affect the spiritual, or soul, only when they are brought into the body where each individual soul resides ; that is, by the great law of contact. Molds are the result of very exact machinery. In this case, as we have seen, sound forms the indentures so that in certain respects they will act precisely the same in making sound from material made by shock (in this case collision with the repro- ducer) as the original body. And this would be equally true with any body, making any sound. For here we strike one of Nature's universal laws that like produces like ; nor is it possible for it, under same conditions, to produce anything else. We will now explain the method of copying graphophone records made in paraffine and wax, by Sound. After long continued effort this has been satisfactorily done. The process we obtained from a member of the firm which manufactured them. First. A graphophone record is made, using a wax-like disc or circular plate. Second. The wax-like disc is coated with a suitable sub stance, such as plumbago, and copper-plated by electricity. The copper plate is then removed from the wax, and backed up by some aluminum or zinc alloy to make it strong. Into this copper plate, which acts as a negative, the material while it is hot, of which the commercial records are made, is poured and then pressed, the pressure used being about ten tons. By this pressure, a fac-simile of the original record made by sound is transferred to the disc records of commerce, and these are equally good as the original record, because an exact copy. That is, they will make the same sounds equally well. In this case we know that the second disc record is the I 8 SOUND same as the first, made by sound, because the second is a copy of the first upon a negative plate. As this copy is one of form, and is satisfactory only as it is accurate, it is proof that the character of sound is decided by the shape of the colliding bodies, which make it, each body making the same, if similar, and otherwise different sounds. It follows that the first collision we will suppose that of a bell with its tongue, produces infinitesimal particles of elec- trical matter, impressed with a power of a particular kind of movement. It is these particles which directly or indirectly make the record. That is, they so affect the recorder, that it makes indentures of a certain form, in the paraffine and wax; or else, they drop into the wax and make them themselves. In either case the operation can be explained only by the corpuscular theory. By the microscope it can be seen that all the indentures made by the same sound, for instance the letter A, are alike in form. And every one made by another and different sound will be alike, but different from the first. And this is true of any or all sounds. That is, in making a record, every sound makes a particular indenture, which will always, when struck, repeat the sound that made it. And this, as we have said, is proof that the character of sound depends upon the form of the colliding bodies which produce it. It does away, too, forever with all undulatory theories. For it is self-evident that that which carves bodies strong enough and numerous enough to repeat all the sounds of the world, in any material, must be of substantial character. And besides, as we have seen, it is easily proven that the scientific explana- tion of the graphophone is entirely fallacious.* * See note, page 22. THE GRAPHOPHONE RECORD 19 Sound itself is a mixture of different ingredients of matter, which is produced by the blow, but molded, that is mixed, by the colliding bodies. And of necessity the result is varied with the slighest change of the shape, which means dimensions, of the colliding bodies. For the blow shakes the whole body, and the material it arouses, and of which every sound in the universe is made, is shaped by a colliding body, every part of which, whether small or large, enters into action from the effect of the blow. And therefore as the bodies colliding are different, the sounds are different. And these changes, like those of color, are or may be of the most delicate character. That is, the shape of a body includes all there is of it. But the function of shock is to stir up whatever it hits, the whole of it. And therefore the material engendered by the blow varies with the dimensions of the body. We will close this article by quoting from "THE NEW PHYSICS," pages 230-232, the following passage, which itself is copied from Vol. III. of " Ellen." " Ganot says : 'A singular property of bodies in a state of vibration is that of setting in vibration bodies at rest. Thus, if two tuning-forks, tuned so as to give accurately the same note, be at some distance from each other, and one of them be sounded, the other will be set in vibration and emit the same note. But, if one of the forks be put slightly out of tune with the other, by attaching a piece of wax to one prong, for in- stance, then the excitation of either one will have no effect on the other. ' This phenomenon, that a body in a state of vibration has the power of causing an independent body at rest to vibrate in the same period, is called consonance. 'If a metal wire freely suspended in the air be tightly stretched and then be set in vibration, the note which it emits will be feeble. So, too, a tuning-fork when sounded gives but a feeble note ; but if its stem be held on a table the note becomes far louder. e The reinforcement of a sound by attaching the sounding body to a large, dry, elastic wooden plate, called a sounding-board, or to a wooden box surrounded by air, is called resonance. 20 SOUND ' Although the terms consonance and resonance are sometimes used indiscriminately, there are distinctions between them. 'Consonance is the excitation of an independent body to vibrate in unison with the sounding body ; it begins later than the sounding body, and continues after it has become silent. Resonance begins and ends with the sound of the exciting body.' "Sound is always a fluid created by shock, as much as rain is by clouds, or streams by springs, and thus is gathered in a sounding body with the capacity of flowing rapidly, provided it can find a channel to flow in. "But when difficult for it to leave the sounding body, its action makes the body vibrate, thus constantly throwing off some sound into the air, where it instantly finds channels in all directions. What cannot thus escape is held in the sound- ing body, similarly as water is held in a pond which has no outlet, or is partly held in one that has; but the life of any sound is brief. " If the Sound in a sounding body, as a tuning fork, is con- nected with any conductor, as by placing the stem of the fork upon it, it will enter this rapidly until it has all left the sound- ing-body. Frequently it is thus conducted to sounding-boards where it is readily thrown off into the air. Occasionally it finds bodies having the form of the body which made it, in which case, entering, it causes them to vibrate, because its particles are fitted to circulate in them ; the same general princi- ple by which the same key will unlock any lock similar to the one it belongs to. This it will do, can't help but do, whilst it lasts, or if reconducted quickly enough to the original sounding body it would doubtless again cause that to vibrate. For these are the things it is fitted to do, and, given any opportunity, it will continue to do them ; but it cannot make any new sound, or any more sound, nor can anything except shock. And therefore in order to have more sound we must have repeated shocks, just as in order to have more rain we must have repeated THE GRAPHOPHONE RECORD 21 showers. In all cases, too, where Sound is conducted away from a sounding body, the time it remains in the body will be inversely proportional to the speed with which it flows from it. " Ellen will now call attention to those things which do take place in the repeating of sounds, and those that do not. " Sounds are repeated by a graphophone, in accordance with the laws governing Sound. They are not repeated by a dia- fram, with reason enough, that they could not be without viola- ting these laws, something that never happens, except in text- books. " In one case there is an instrument made, that in strict ac- cordance with the laws governing Sound makes them. In the other there is no such instrument; and the diafram couldn't repeat the sounds of the world, any more than a pumpkin could, or a beet, or a carrot, or anything else which was not made to make them. "The diafram assists, as Ellen has repeatedly said, in gather- ing and reflecting Sound, as a stove does heat. "A writer in Good Works, 1878, page 280, in a long and ably written article on the telephone and graphophone, in referring to the latter, says : 'Once more rotating the cylinder the style rises and falls as the now embossed foil passes beneath it, and the motion given to the style is communicated to the disc and thence to the air around.' "And Ganot says : 'When this record was passed again beneath the style the varying indentations on the foil caused the style to vibrate as it did when it produced the indentations, and the diafram was similarly set into vibration, and reproduced the sound by which it was in the first instance set into vibration.' "Nothing of the kind takes place. What takes place, as we have seen, is the reproduction or reappearance of the original 22 SOUND sound, with its peculiarities and characteristics. And this is infinitesimal particles of matter, endowed with a power of motion. The sounds are made only by the record, as may plainly be demonstrated by listening. They are generally con- ducted from the record to the diafram, and through this into the megaphone, which introduces them where they are heard. "That the cause of reproduction of sound in a graphophone is entirely connected with the record, may be tested by anyone. For the sound can be heard when a reproducer is passed over the record, although the record is entirely disconnected from the diafram. Ellen destroyed the diafram but the sounds were reproduced, the style being pressed down upon the record. All any diafram can do, is to assist in collecting, and by that means increasing the effects of sounds made by some sound- producing instrument." 4 It will thus be seen that the explanation of the action of sound at a telephone usually given in science, and repeated in "The Americana," copyrighted 1904-1906, and edited by the editor of the " Scientific American," is entirely a mistake; the truth being that the sounds are remade by the shock between the stylus or reproducer and the record, in accordance with the laws creating sound, the previous similar sounds having been entirely destroyed, as most sounds are within a few seconds, and all within a few minutes of their production. We are not especially surprised that anyone who could * The above experiments showing that the only function of a diafram connected with sound is to collect and reflect it, as a stove, heat, were made by Prof. T. E. Boyce, now of Middlebury, Vt., for nine years Professor of Mathematics, Middlebury College, a gentleman unusually accomplished and accurate in all such experiments; together with the author of this pamphlet. After the diafram was disconnected, Prof. Boyce held the reproducer in his hand, pressing it upon the revolving cylinder, when the words were plainly heard, showing that the reproducing of the sounds was entirely a matter of shock, caused by the reproducer colliding with the continuous indentures upon the revolving cylinder, which indentures were previously made by words spoken into the megaphone then connected with the cylinder by the diafram. THE GRAPHOPHONE RECORD 23 make this blunder in editing an Encyclopaedia, should be indis- posed to admit it. ' There are none so blind as those who will not see.' The above experiments by Prof. Boyce and myself, which can be repeated by anyone in a few minutes, demonstrate beyond any possibility of question, that sound is made by shock, its character being formed by the colliding bodies which make it. In the case of the phonograph or graphophone the sounds that we hear are made, as we have seen, by the shock between the indentures and reproducer. Their life, too, is very brief, but there is nothing to prevent their being repeated many times by shock, that is, in accord- ance with the laws which produce sound. And all of this means that we have entered the kingdom of, to us, infinitesimals, where light, colors, and sounds are manu- factured, of which light is the most important, but the others very valuable. The great Eng 1 .ish thinker and philosopher, Locke, says : " Five senses are universally recognized : Sight, hearing, smell, taste, and touch. Each has its appropriate organ ; seeing has the eye, hear- ing the ear, smell the nostrils, taste the tongue, and touch the fingers and the body generally. Each sense has a nerve conveying the appropriate impressions to the brain." And again he says : "Our Senses conversant about particular sensible objects, do convey into the Mind several distinct perceptions of things, according to those various ways wherein those objects do affect them : and thus we come by those ideas we have of Yellow, White, Heat, Cold, Soft, Hard, Bitter, Sweet, and all those which we call sensitive qualities, which when I say the senses convey into the Mind, I mean, they from external objects convey into the Mind what produces there those perceptions" This last sentence is very clearly and correctly stated. The 24 SOUND " appropriate impressions" are the substances which, in the con- struction of the universe, were designed to perform these functions. The following definition of sensation is from the Encyclo- paedic Dictionary: Sensation: The peculiar property of the nervous system in a state of activity, by which impressions are conveyed to the brain or sensorium. When an impression is made upon any portion of the bodily surface by contact, heat, electricity, or any other agent, the mind is rendered conscious of this by sensation. In this process there are three stages reception of the impression at the end of the sensory nerve, the conduction of it along the nerve trunk to the sensorium, and the change it excites in the sensorium itself, through which is produced sensation. From the above it may be seen how easily Sound is con- ducted to the soul of man after reaching the auditory nerve, whether it enters the body by the ear, the teeth, or bones of the body. The nerves are substantial, and abundantly large to conduct, and do conduct, the infinitesimal particles of sound to their destination in animal bodies, where, in accordance with invariable law, they affect the soul through the combinations of matter of which they consist, every change in these producing a proportional change in their action upon spirit In the case of Sound it is proven that it is created by shock, its particular character being decided by the colliding bodies, when, by various routes, it finds its way to the auditory nerve, and thence to the brain of sentient beings. We have quoted, too, the elegant treatise upon odors by the French Scientist, Papillon, proving that they are composed of carbon and hydro- gen with or without oxygen, which is now accepted by all, although they too, as well as electricity, heat and light, had been called undulatory. There remains Light, held by Sir Isaac Newton to be cor- puscular, and was so generally taught for about 100 years. THE GRAPHOPHONE RECORD 2$ Newton was born 1642 and died 1727. Dr. Young, by whose alleged discovery of the law of Interference of Light, the Undulatory Theory was substituted for the Corpuscular, was born at Milverton, Somersetshire, England, June 13, 1773, and died May 10, 1829. Chambers' Encyclopaedia says: * He published in 1802 a Syllabus of a Course of Lectures on Natural and Experimental Philosophy, in which, among other things, he first announced his great discovery of the law of the Interference of Light, which by itself, as Sir John Herschel has remarked, would have pro- cured him a scientific immortality. It was this discovery which first fairly turned the balance of evidence in favor of the undulatory as against the molecular theory of light. It is Young's most important contribution to Science.' ******** 'Young's doctrine of interference was at first unfavorably received by scientific men in England ; it was attacked and ridiculed in the Edinburgh Review; and so little interest was taken in the subject, that, of a pamphlet which Young published in answer to the Edinburgh Review, only a single copy was sold.' Vol. III. of "Ellen," soon to be published, includes an essay on Light, in which this law of the Interference of Light is shown to be a complete humbug. This is true in all the experiments in the different physics which are supposed to sustain the undulatory theories, as those of polarization. Every one of these can be explained by established principles, and in every case any other line of reason- ing can be proved to be a humbug. Take polarization or double refraction. In both of these experiments what happens is the result of reflection, in which in both cases the reflected image, describes a circle around the stationary one. In the case of so- called crystals the reflected image will perform a complete circle about the other, right side up, if the crystal, with its face remaining on, or held parallel, with the paper, is turned around. In the case of so-called polarization the reflected body in the upper mirror turns a complete somersault, beginning at the moment it starts from a parallel position with the lower one. 26 SOUND Let us suppose the body reflected is a church. Place the lower mirror, B, (figure i), so that the church can be seen re- flected up through the tube, T. Place the upper mirror, A, parallel to the lower, and the church, reflected from A, stands erect like the real church. But as the upper mirror begins to turn about the axis of the tube from left to right, the church reflected by it begins to turn over, and when the axis of A is at right angles to that of B (figure 2), the reflected church will be lying upon one side at right angles to the real church. And as the upper mirror is further turned, the church, re- flected in it, continues to turn over, until, when the mirror is moved half round, the doubly reflected church stands upon the point of its steeple. Passing this point it begins to right itself, until, when it has made one entire turn, and is again parallel with the lower mirror, both churches are once more erect. The.only principle operative here is the well known one, that the angle of reflection is equal to the angle of incidence. Figure I. Figure 2. And this is the explanation of so-called polarization of Light. It has to do only with laws of reflection, and has no connection whatever with undulatory theories. THE GRAPHOPHONE RECORD 2f Figure I is an exact copy of the one used in Arnot's Physics, one of the best, to demonstrate the so,-called law of the Interference of Light. Of course, in such example, if the image doubly reflected is diffused light, as is the fact in the experiments referred to, it will become less and less visible as the reflection of it becomes more and more nearly horizontal, until, if the mirrors are precisely at right angles, it may disappear. All other experiments of this character which have been advanced as evidence of the undulatory theories are as worth- less as these. And this is the kind of experiment relied upon to demonstrate the law of the Interference of Light.* * In the "Encyclopaedia Metropolitana," Sir J. H. W. Herschel speaking in the interest of Dr. Young's undulatory theories says : " If the axes of the fork, or the line to which it is symmetrical, be held upright about a foot from the ear, and it be turned round this axis while vibrating, at every quarter revolution, the sound will become so faint as scarcely to be heard, while in the intermediate axis of rotation it is heard clear and strong. The audible situations lie in lines perpen- dicular and parallel to the "flat faces of the fork, the inaudible at 45 inclined to them. This elegant experiment, due originally to Dr. Young, has recently been called into notice by Weber." It is true that if a sounding tuning fork is turned about the ear the sound varies, which is explained by scientists as a won- derful demonstration of the extinguishing of sound waves by the interference of one wave with another ; and is indeed sup- posed to be one of the principal proofs of this undulatory theory, although the true explanation is that Sound is thrown off from the flat part of the fork much faster than from its edges ; also when the flat part of the fork faces the ear, more sound enters the ear and is heard, than when the flat part of the fork is turned away from the ear; for only that sound is heard which enters the ear. This, too, by itself, is a demon- 28 SOUND stration that Sound is composed of particles of matter. Thus if the nozzje of a pipe, through which water was being thrown, was turned towards the ear, more water would be thrown into the ear than if the nozzle was turned from it. It would hardly be possible to find anything more self-evident. We add for reference description of the Phonograph taken from "The Americana " : "Phonograph, an instrument invented in 1877, by Thomas Edison of Menlo Park, N. J., by means of which articulate sounds can be regis- tered permanently, and afterward reproduced from such mechanical register. The instrument as originally made consists of a mouthpiece, having a stretched membrane ; connected with the center of this membrane is a steel point, which, when the sounds are projected on the membrane through the mouthpiece, vibrates backward and for- ward. This arrangement is placed before a cylinder which rotates upon a horizontal axis. A spiral groove is cut upon the surface of this cylinder, and a similar spiral screw fitted in a knot, is cut upon the axis of the cylinder ; the pitch of both spirals is the same. By means of a handle attached to the axis the latter with its attached cylinder can be rotated. The cylinder has therefore a motion of rotation and translation, the latter being at right angles to the plane of rotation. The whole may be set in motion by clock-work, electricity, or other- wise, instead of by hand. When the instrument is to be used a piece of tin-foil is laid around the cylinder, being kept close to it by means of gum or water, and the stand holding the mouthpiece is brought close to one end of the cylinder ; the steel point of the diafram is then adjusted so as to be just touching, or close to the tin-foil, and above the line of spiral grooves. It will be seen, then, that any movement of the steel point due to the motion of the diafram will cause a slight indentation of the tin-foil, which will by such movement be slightly depressed into the groove beneath it ; and if the cylinder be rotated, the steel point will, from the pitch of the groove and screw being alike, always be over the line of grooves. " If the instrument be then set as above described and some words be spoken into the mouthpiece, while at the same time the cylinder is kept in rotation, a series of minute marks are made upon the tin-foil by the movements of the steel point, and the markings have all an individuality of their own, due to the varying sounds addressed to the mouthpiece. "So far a register only of the sounds emitted has been obtained, and we have now to show how these sounds in this manner, fixed as it were THE GRAPHOPHONE RECORD 29 on .the tin-foil, can be reproduced. To affect this the mouthpiece must be drawn back, and the cylinder rotated in the reverse direction to what it was at first, so as to bring the same part of the tin-foil with which the operation commenced back to the point at which it started, namely, opposite the steel point. The diafram with its steel point is then approached toward the tin-foil as at first, now resting upon the same point of the tin-foil as it had previously first indented. The cylinder is now rotated as at first, with the result that the small inden- tations or sound markings made previously now act upon the steel point by causing it to rise or fall, or otherwise moved, as the markings passed beneath it ; the result of this is that the diafram in connection with the steel point is thrown into a state of vibration exactly corresponding to the movements induced by the forms of the markings, and thus affects the air around so as to produce sounds, and these vibrations being exactly similar to those originally made by the voice necessarily repro- duce those sounds to the ear as the words at first spoken. The diafram in this way acts as the medium of transmission of sounds to be registered on the tin-foil, and as the medium of reproduction of these sounds from the metallic register on which they have been impressed. The strips of foil can be kept for any length of time before the sounds are repro- duced." We have printed in italics the lines above which attempt to explain the sounds made by a graphophone record. By destroying the diafram and then holding the reproducer by the hand, or otherwise, so that it will produce shock with the revolving cylinder, the sounds which this musical instrument was made to utter can be distinctly heard, which proves the scientific explanation to be erroneous, and all undulatory theories to be a humbug. IV TO Library in the world complete without the philosophical ' novel "Ellen" which, among many other things, gives the first and only correct exposition of Sound, including its action in a telephone, and also the only correct explanation of the operation of a Graphophone Record, ever published. Vol. I., 603 pp., Vol. II., 900 pp. Price per volume, cloth, $2 ; Morocco, full gilt, $3 ; express or postage paid. Vol. III. in type. ADDRESS : AMERICAN PUBLISHING COMPANY, MlDDLEBURY, VT. - THIS BOOK IS DUE ON THE LAST DATE STAMPED BELOW AN INITIAL FINE OF 25 CENTS WILL BE ASSESSED FOR FAILUR^TQ*RETUf?^ THIS BOOK ON THE DATf|;>pU|f. fiTHJE PfeNALMfigt WILL INCREASE TO 5O C Jl%|j|O| l '*^ JXVJR^ DAY AND TO $1.OO OI^ OVERDUE. REC'DUD OCT26 DEC 1Q m2 1 h*y 17 ?932 I ii NOV 1019J37 RECTD lDEei-'65-8PM LOAN DEPT. SEffTONILL JAN3096 'U.C.BERKELEY DEC 2 1943 APR 4 1946 LD 21-50H(-8,-32