Sound / by John Tyndall.

  • John Tyndall
Date:
1883
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Sound / by John Tyndall. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by UCL Library Services. The original may be consulted at UCL (University College London)

    476/494 page 452
    tion, some not. Here were conditions capable of providing several belts of air, varying in the amount of watery vapour (and probably in temperature), arranged like lamina? at right angles to the acoustic waves as they came from the battle-field to me. ' Respectfully, ' Your obedient servant, ' R. G. H. Kean. ' Professor John TyndalL' I extract the following from Mr. Archibald Forbes's Experiences of the War between France and Germany ' :— ' Before ten o'clock on the morning of the 5th, the air, thick with fog, was burdened also with a sound to which one could not well give a name. . . . The morning of the 6th presented a remarkable contrast in every respect to that of the preceding day. The latter had been cold to chilling of the marrow of the bones, and so thick that nothing was to be seen half a mile away. The former was clear, bright, and warm as a morning at the end of March. Yesterday the air was charged with sound; to-day there reigned the stillness of an Arcadia that knows no war. Men looked at each other in blank amazement. Had Paris, forts, big guns, bombardment, and the non-bom- bardment on the eastern side alike been spirited away 1 . . . Determining to anticipate by personal investigation informa- tion which was kindly promised me, I rode off to the front of Montmorency, whence there lay spread before the eye the wide panorama of the north side of Paris. Still, all was silent as the grave. . . . There I found three mounted men, and we had a little talk about the position. They inclined to the armistice negotiations theory, as they had not heard a single shot since morning. As we spoke, there came a white jet of smoke out of the grey side of La Briche. No sound—for all the noise it made, it might have been an escape of steam. ... I came on to Goncsse alone. What was my surprise to find all the German batteries from Gonesse to Sevran firing away vigor- ously! They had been at it since eight in the morning. In Gonesse I learned that the firing on the south side was believed to have re-commenced at the same hour, and was certainly going on. Yet at Margencey and Montmorency we could not hear a
    digitised image 1
    digitised image 2
    digitised image 3