Echo

Sound:
If one shouts in a forest, the sound is sometimes heard a second time a second or two later. This is because sound is reflected when it strikes a large obstructing surface. If the sound waves resulting from the shout meet a cliff or a mountain, they are reflected back, and on reaching the ear produce a later sensation of sound.

By observation it has been found that the ear cannot distinguish sounds which are less than one tenth of a second apart; that is, if two sounds follow each other at an interval less than one tenth of a second, the ear recognizes not two sounds, but one. This explains why a speaker can be heard better indoors than in the open air. In the average building, the walls are so close that the reflected waves have but a short distance to travel, and hence reach the ear at practically the same time as those which come directly from the speaker. In the open, there are no reflecting walls or surfaces, and the original sound has no reënforcement from reflection.

If the reflected waves reach the ear too late to blend with the original sound, that is, come later than one tenth of a second after the first impression, an echo is heard. What we call the rolling of thunder is really the reflection and re-reflection of the original thunder from cloud and cliff.

Some halls are so large that the reflected sounds cause a confusion of echoes, but this difficulty can be lessened by hanging draperies, which break the reflection.