But our programme enabled us to go further than mere inference. It
had been arranged on the day mentioned that up to 3.30 P.M. the siren
should perform 2,400 revolutions a minute, generating 480 waves a
second. As long as this rate continued, the horn, after the shower, had
the advantage. The rate of rotation was then changed to 2,000 a minute,
or 400 waves a second, when the siren-sound immediately surpassed that
of the horn. A clear connection was thus established between aërial
reflection and the length of the sonorous waves.
The 10-inch Canadian whistle being capable of adjustment so as to
produce sounds of different pitch, on the 10th of October I ran through
a series of its sounds. The shrillest appeared to possess great
intensity and penetrative power. The belief is common that a note of
this character (which affects so powerfully, and even painfully, an
observer close at hand) has also the greatest range. Mr. A. Gordon,
in his examination before the Committee on Lighthouses, in 1845,
expressed himself thus: “When you get a shrill sound, high in the
scale, that sound is carried much further than a lower note in the
scale.” I have heard the same opinion expressed by other scientific men.
On the 14th of October the point was submitted to an experimental test.
It had been arranged that up to 11.30 A.M. the Canadian whistle, which
had been heard with such piercing intensity on the 10th, should sound
its shrillest note. At the hour just mentioned we were beside the Varne
buoy, 7-3/4 miles from the Foreland. The siren, as we approached the
buoy, was heard through the paddle-noises; the horns were also heard,
but more feebly than the siren. We paused at the buoy and listened for
the 11.30 gun. Its boom was heard by all. Neither before nor during
the pause was the shrill-sounding Canadian whistle once heard. At the
appointed time it was adjusted to produce its ordinary low-pitched
note, which was immediately heard. Further out the low boom of the
cannon continued audible after all the other sounds had ceased.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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