sympathy with it, this increase of sound would not result. Now, when we blow across the end, we present, as it were, a number of vibrating tuning-forks to the pipe, which picks out those air-pulses with which it sympathizes.
LENGTH AND TONE.
The rate of vibration is found to be inversely proportional to the length of the pipe. Thus, the vibrations of a two-foot pipe are twice as rapid as those of a four-foot pipe, and the note emitted by the former is an octave higher than that of the latter. A one-foot pipe gives a note an octave higher still. We are here speaking of the fundamental tones of the pipes. With them, as in the case of strings, are associated the overtones, or harmonics, which can be brought into prominence by increasing the pressure of the blast at the top of the pipe. Blow very hard on your key, and the note suddenly changes to one much shriller. It is the twelfth of the fundamental, of which it has completely got the upper hand.
We must now put on our thinking-caps and try to understand how this comes about. First, let us note that the vibration of a body (in this case a column of air) means a motion from a point of rest to a point of rest, or from node to node. In the air-column in Fig. 136, 1, there is only one point of rest for an impulse—namely, at the bottom of the pipe. So that to pass from node to node the impulse must pass up the pipe and down again. The distance from node to node in a vibrating body is called a ventral segment. Remember this term. Therefore the pipe represents a semi-ventral segment when the fundamental note