A History of the Earth, and Animated Nature (Volume 2)
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ISBN10: 1443286915
ISBN13: 9781443286916
Publisher: General Books
Pages: 112
Weight: 0.47
Height: 0.23 Width: 7.44 Depth: 9.69
Language: English
ISBN13: 9781443286916
Publisher: General Books
Pages: 112
Weight: 0.47
Height: 0.23 Width: 7.44 Depth: 9.69
Language: English
Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. Excerpt from book: Section 3CHAP. III. textit{Of Hearing.* the sense of hearing, as well as of sight, gives us notice of remote objects, so, like that, it is subject to similar errors, being capable of imposing on us upon all occasions, where we cannot rectify it by the sense of feeling. We can have from it no distinct intelligence of the distance from whence a sounding body is heard; a great noise far off, and a small one very near, produce the same sensation; and, unless we receive information from some other sense, we can never distinctly tell whether the sound be a great or a small one. It is not till we have learned, by experience, that the particular sound, which is heard, is of a peculiar kind; then we can judge of the distance from whence we hear it. When we know the tone of the bell, we can then judge how far it is from us. Every body that strikes against another produces a sound, which is simple, and but one in bodies which are not elastic, but which is often repeated in such as are. If we strike a bell, or a stretched string, for instance, which are both elastic, a single blow produces a sound, which is repeated by the undulations of the sonorous body, and which is multiplied as often as it happens to uu.dulate, or vibrate. These undulations each strike their own peculiar blow;, but they succeed so fast, one behind the other, that the ear supposes them one continued sound.; whereas, in reality, they make many. A person who should, for the first time hear the toll of the bell, would very probably be able to distinguish these breaks of sound; and, in fact, we can readily ourselves perceive an intension and remission in the sound. fibres, .are subject to inflammations, numbness, palsy, convulsion, and the defects of old age.] * This chapter is taken from M. Buffon, except wher marked by inverted commas. VOL...