Jasper County Democrat, Volume 12, Number 47, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 25 September 1909 — Music of the Telegraph. [ARTICLE]

Music of the Telegraph.

Every one has put his ear to a telegraph pole to bear the wires bum, and most people have assumed that the wind was entirely responsible for the sound. So it is in many cases, but often the note is heard when not the slightest movement of the air is perceptible. A French investigator tells us that the sound in this case is due to the expansion and contraction of the wires from variations of temperature. As the wires are not perfectly uniform, they rub against the insulators, making a slight noise, which is amplified by the post acting as a sounding board. Another investigator is sure the sounds are due to electric waves, but he fails to explain how ordinary telegraph wires should be able to serve as wave detectors and in what way the electric waves are transformed into sound waves. The other theoory seems more probable. Some curious stories are told of this telegraph wire music. In Siberia the bears think that it is the buzzing of bees and would tear down the poles to look for honey if the contractors did not pile great stones about them to prevent this. In France, on the south side of the forest of Fontainebleau, the telegraph sounds are regarded as presaging rain. This is because the south wind in this region brings rain and the forest shuts off the nortD wind. In some districts the noise is popularly supposed to be due to the passage of messages, but it is hardly necessary to say that there is no evidence to support this view.—Philadelphia Inquirer.