Professor Fleeming Jenkin has applied the phonograph to a very
interesting series of observations on the wave-forms of articulate
sound. By a process of enlargement of the vibrations caused by the
indented tinfoil, he, with the assistance of Mr J. A. Ewing, has
obtained a large series of markings, upon bands of paper, by which the
wave-forms of different sounds have been shewn. Some of those results
Professor Jenkin has laid before the Royal Society of Edinburgh.
The vowel sounds in the phonograph are found not to be dependent on
the speed with which the cylinder of the phonograph is turned, the
distinct vowel being heard however much the pitch of the note may be
altered. He found that the phonograph resolutely refused to reproduce
the French _u_, converting it always into the sound of _oo_. On the
black-board, Professor Jenkin illustrated some of the constant forms
assumed by the sound-waves, one of the most interesting being those of
the letter _r_. In the case of the broad sound of _a_, it was shewn
that while with most ordinary voices the wave took the form which
might be described as having two humps, a rich bass voice had been
found to give a wave-form much more intricate, shewing four distinct
humps in each recurrent period of vibration. It was found that the
phonograph gave vowel sounds, as well when the cylinder was turned
backwards as forwards; and encouraged by this, the consonants were
experimented upon, giving the same result. Even with a consonant at
the beginning and end of a syllable, as, for example, _bab_, it was
rather unexpectedly found that the word would be correctly repeated
either way; shewing the identity of the sound. Professor Jenkin gave
some amusement by describing the effects of reading words backwards,
stating that with careful observation every sound could be heard, as,
for example, in ‘Association,’ which, when the cylinder was reversed,
could be distinctly heard as ‘nosh-a-i-sho-sa.’ In ‘Edinburgh’—which
he said Mr Ewing could pronounce backwards, though _he_ could not—the
various sounds could also be distinguished. Words and sentences which
when pronounced backwards or forwards sound the same, were tried.
Thus was tried the well-known sentence, ‘Madam, I’m Adam,’ with which
Adam is traditionally alleged to have saluted Eve; but ‘Madam, I’m
Adam,’ although spelt the same both ways, did not sound the same in
the phonograph, the diphthongal sound of the ‘I’m’ giving a sound like
‘mya.’ It is obvious from Professor Fleeming Jenkin’s experiments that
some interesting points in acoustics may yet be settled by means of
this extraordinary instrument.
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[Transcriber’s note: the following changes have been made to this text.