SHINGLE CAUSES ECHO.

Auckland Star, Volume LIX, Issue 77, 31 March 1928, Page 1 (Supplement)

SHINGLE CAUSES ECHO.

albert hail mystery. WOMEN DO NOT "ABSORB."

The famous Albert Hall echo, which has been making itself manifest night after night, with a disconcerting effect On artists and audience, is to be "killed" forthwith. Mr. C. B. Cochran has decided to make the hall echo-proof. Recently he was at the great London hall co-operating with a small army of experts In a gigantic echo hunt. Hunting began in the roof- Two men set in motion the wheels of an 'interrupter," a scientific instrument which combines the function of a searchlight with that of a projector, and throws out jimultaneously sound and light. They found the first echo immediately. Back into the arena, where they were standing, came the "buzzing" of the interrupter, sounding like the twittering >f a thousand birds. Steadily the beam swept the hall. Here they missed the mswering buzz—the beam, for instance, ffas shot into the Royal box, which was >roved echo-proof—there, a few yards ilong, they heard the ghost-birds singng ' their song. Altogether about 15 separate echoes were located. Within recent years, one of the experts said, echoes in the Albert Hall ind in other buildings have increased in volume. For this he blamed the prevailing fashion in women's dress. "With their shingled hair $nd skimpy clothes, vomen are not as sound absorbing as ,hey were when dresses were voluminous ind fluffy," he explained. "Now the sound is reflected back into the hall initead of being absorbed. Similarly, the lard dress-shirt fronts of the men are jad sound or echo absorbers. It will take us about seven weeks to locate the Albert Hall echoes scientifically. Then, once we have mapped them out, we shall drape the danger spots with, some sound-absorbing material, and that's the last we shall ever hear „p/_|he iohoes." "