Magic tricks -- Juvenile literature; Scientific recreations -- Juvenile literature
Pour sparkling champagne into a glass until it is half full, when the
glass will lose its power of ringing by a stroke upon its edges, and
will emit only a disagreeable and puffy sound. Nor will the glass ring
while the wine is brisk, and filled with air-bubbles; but, as the
effervescence subsides, the sound will become clearer and clearer,
and when the air bubbles have entirely disappeared, the glass will
ring as usual. If a crumb of bread be thrown into the champagne, and
effervescence be re-produced, the glass will again cease to ring. The
same experiment will also succeed with soda-water, ginger wine, or any
other effervescing liquid.
MUSIC FROM PALISADES.
If a line of broad palisades, set edgewise in a line directed from
the ear, and at even distances from each other, be struck at the end
nearest the auditor, they will reflect the sound of the blow, and
produce a succession of echoes: these, from the equal distance of the
palisades, will reach the ear at equal intervals of time, and will,
therefore, produce the effect of a number of impulses originating in
one point. Thus, a musical note will be heard.
THEORY OF THE JEW’S HARP.
If you cause the tongue of this little instrument to vibrate, it will
produce a very low sound; but, if you place it before a cavity, (as the
mouth,) containing a column of air, which vibrates much faster, but
in the proportion of any simple multiple, it will then produce other
higher sounds, dependent upon the reciprocation of that portion of the
air. Now, the bulk of air in the mouth can be altered in its form,
size, and other circumstances, so as to produce by reciprocation, many
different sounds; and these are the sounds belonging to the Jew’s Harp.
A proof of this fact has been given by Mr. Eulenstein, who fitted into
a long metallic tube a piston, which, being moved, could be made to
lengthen or shorten the efficient column of air within at pleasure. A
Jew’s Harp was then so fixed that it could be made to vibrate before
the mouth of the tube, and it was found that the column of air produced
a series of sounds, according as it was lengthened or shortened; a
sound being produced whenever the length of the column was such that
its vibrations were a multiple of those of the Jew’s Harp.
MUSIC OF THE SNAIL.
Place a garden-snail upon a pane of glass, and in drawing itself along,
it will frequently produce sounds similar to those of musical glasses.
TO TUNE A GUITAR WITHOUT THE ASSISTANCE OF THE EAR.
Make one string to sound, and its vibrations will, with much force,
be transferred to the next string: this transference may be seen by
placing a saddle of paper (like an inverted v, Λ) upon the
string, at first in a state of rest. When this string _hears_ the
other, the saddle will be shaken, or fall off; when both strings are in
harmony, the paper will be very little, or not at all, shaken.
MUSIC FROM GLASS OR METAL RODS.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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