_Sound-Area._--While the sound was a very prominent feature of the earthquake in and near the epicentral area, records at a great distance are naturally difficult to obtain, and, on this account, the number of stations for determining the boundary of the sound-area is too small to allow of it being accurately drawn. As a rule, however, it must lie between the isoseismals 5 and 4, but it is less nearly circular than either of these lines. Its length, from north-west to south-east, is 320 miles, its breadth 284 miles, and the area contained by it about 70,000 square miles, or roughly two-thirds that of the disturbed area. _Isacoustic Lines._--The dotted lines in Fig. 60 represent isacoustic lines--that is, lines which pass through all places where the percentage of observers who recorded their perception of the sound is the same. For instance, if we take any point in the line marked 80 and describe a small circle with that point as centre, then 80 per cent. of the observers within that circle would hear the earthquake-sound. The isacoustic lines thus show how the audibility of the sound varies throughout the sound area. To draw the curves with a close approach to accuracy, the unit of area should be small and of constant dimensions; but, in the present case, owing to the comparative paucity of the observations, a smaller unit than the county would give unreliable results.[65] At the centre of each county, the sound audibility may be regarded as proportional to the percentage of the total number of observers within the county who distinctly heard the sound. To draw the curve marked 50, the centre of every county in which the average percentage is less than 50 is joined to the centres of those adjoining counties in which it is above 50, and these lines are then divided in the proper ratio so as to give a point where the percentage would be exactly 50. A number of points at which the percentage is 50 is thus obtained, and the curve drawn through them is the required isacoustic line. The percentage of audibility varies from 87 in Herefordshire to 23 in Essex and the east of Ireland, but the only isacoustic lines which can be completely drawn are those that correspond to the percentages between 80 and 50 inclusive. The peculiar form of the isacoustic lines will be evident at a glance. They bear little relation to the isoseismal lines. Their greatest extensions are not along the axes of those lines, but in two directions which are a little east of north-east and south of south-west. They lie indeed along a hyberbolic line which, towards the south-west, agrees closely with the curvilinear axis of the hyperbolic band represented by the broken line in Fig. 60. Towards the north-east, the coincidence is not so close, but this is chiefly owing to the magnitude of the northern counties, which causes a deflection of the isacoustic lines towards the north.