ASCENDING SOUND.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 20289, 23 December 1927, Page 12

ASCENDING SOUND.

HOW HIGH DOES IT RISE) Some very interesting experiments with regard to the height to which sound penetrates tho upper atmosphere have recently been made, and yielded rather surprising results, according to a writer in a late number of Kosmos (Stuttgart). Tho tests wore made, of course, in a free balloon, since airplanes and dirigibles make so much noise with their propellers as (c interfere with the hearing of other sounds. We are told that the shout of a man can be heard at a distance of 500 yards above Ibe earth, while, strange to say, the croaking of frogs was heard at a height of 900 yards. In the latter case, however, there was doubtless a chorus to augment tho sound. Martini music was perceived at a height of 1400 yards, and the ringing of chinch bolls at, 1500 yards, while a gunshot was heard at lEOO yards; or one mile. But more penetrating of all die sounds recorded wore those made by a railway t nun. The nimble of tho rain itself icaehcd (he listeners at 2509 yards and the whistle of tho locomotive at 3050 yards, or over a mile and a-half. It is doubtless true that the rise of air currents has a good deal to do with this upward nonet ration of .-mind, and the writer suggests that in the last in-lance (hi; factor probab'y played an important part.