Abstract
II.
we have now to consider the complementary side of the phenomena. A stratum of air, 3 miles thick, on a perfectly calm day, has been proved competent to stifle both the cannonade and the horn-sounds employed at the South Foreland; while the observations just recorded, one and all, point to the mixture of air and aqueous vapour as the cause of this extra-ordinary phenomenon. Such a mixture could fill the atmosphere with an impervious acoustic cloud on a day of perfect optical transparency. But, granting this, it is incredible that so great a body of sound could utterly disappear in so short a distance, without rendering any account of itself. Supposing, then, instead of placing ourselves behind the acoustic cloud, we were to place ourselves in front of it, might we not, in accordance with the law of conservation, expect to receive by reflection the sound which had failed to reach us by transmission? The case would then be strictly analogous to the reflection of light from an ordinary cloud to an observer placed between it and the sun.
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The Acoustic Transparency and Opacity of the Atmosphere * . Nature 9, 267–269 (1874). https://doi.org/10.1038/009267a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/009267a0