Mr. Ayres at my request walked windward along the cliff, while Mr. Douglass proceeded to St. Margaret’s Bay. During their absence I had three guns fired. Mr. Ayres heard only one of them. Favored by the wind, Mr. Douglass, at twice the distance, and far more deeply immersed in the sound-shadow, heard all three reports with the utmost distinctness. Joining Mr. Douglass, we continued our walk to a distance of three-quarters of a mile beyond St. Margaret’s Bay. Here, being dead to leeward, though the wind blew with unabated violence, the sound of the siren was borne to us with extraordinary power.[67] In this position we also heard the gun loudly, and two other loud reports at the proper interval of ten minutes, as we returned to the Foreland. It is within the mark to say that the gun on October 11th was heard five times, and might have been heard fifteen times, as far to leeward as to windward. In windy weather the shortness of its sound is a serious drawback to the use of the gun as a signal. In the case of the horn and siren, time is given for the attention to be fixed upon the sound; and a single puff, while cutting out a portion of the blast, does not obliterate it wholly. Such a puff, however, may be fatal to the momentary gun-sound. On the leeward side of the Foreland, on the 23d of October, the sounds were heard at least four times as far as on the windward side, while in both directions the siren possessed the greatest penetrative power. On the 24th the wind shifted to E.S.E., and the sounds, which, when the wind was W.S.W., failed to reach Dover, were now heard in the streets through thick rain. On the 27th the wind was E.N.E. In our writing-room in the Lord Warden Hotel, in the bedrooms, and on the staircase, the sound of the siren reached us with surprising power, piercing through the whistling and moaning of the wind, which blew through Dover toward Folkestone. The sounds were heard by Mr. Edwards and myself at 6 miles from the Foreland on the Folkestone road; and had the instruments not then ceased sounding, they might have been heard much further. At the South Sand Head light-vessel, 3-3/4 miles on the opposite side, no sound had been heard throughout the day. On the 28th, the wind being N. by E., the sounds were heard in the middle of Folkestone, 8 miles off, while in the opposite direction they failed to reach 3-3/4 miles. On the 29th the limits of range were Eastware Bay on the one side, and Kingsdown on the other; on the 30th the limits were Kingsdown on the one hand, and Folkestone Pier on the other. With a wind having a force of 4 or 5 it was a very common observation to hear the sound in one direction three times as far as in the other.