When the limits of audibility are approached, the sound becomes much fainter, and when that limit is reached, the sound usually gives place to a peculiar sensation, which is not sound but more like dizziness, and which some persons experience to a high degree. Young people hear shriller sounds than older people, and I am told there is a proverb in Dorsetshire, that no agricultural labourer who is more than forty years old, can hear a bat squeak. The power of hearing shrill notes has nothing to do with sharpness of hearing, any more than a wide range of the key-board of a piano has to do with the sound of the individual strings. We all have our limits, and that limit may be quickly found by these whistles in every case. The facility of hearing shrill sounds depends in some degree on the position of the whistle, for it is highest when it is held exactly opposite the opening of the ear. Any roughness of the lining of the auditory canal appears to have a marked effect in checking the transmission of rapid vibrations when they strike the ear obliquely. I myself feel this in a marked degree, and I have long noted the fact in respect to the buzz of a mosquito. I do not hear the mosquito much as it flies about, but when it passes close by my ear I hear a "ping," the suddenness of which is very striking. Mr. Dalby, the aurist, to whom I gave one of these instruments, tells me he uses it for diagnoses. When the power of hearing high notes is wholly lost, the loss is commonly owing to failure in the nerves, but when very deaf people are still able to hear high notes if they are sounded with force, the nerves are usually all right, and the fault lies in the lining of the auditory canal.
E.--QUESTIONS ON VISUALISING AND OTHER ALLIED FACULTIES.
The Questions that I circulated were as follows; there was an earlier and uncomplete form, which I need not reproduce here.
The object of these Questions is to elicit the degree in which different persons possess the power of seeing images in their mind's eye, and of reviving past sensations.
From inquiries I have already made, it appears that remarkable variations exist both in the strength and in the quality of these faculties, and it is highly probable that a statistical inquiry into them will throw light upon more than one psychological problem.