We have also our sound-houses, where we practice and demonstrate all sounds, and their generation. We have harmonies which you do not, of quarter-sounds, and lesser slides of sounds. Divers instruments of music likewise to you unknown, some sweeter than any you have; together with bells and rings that are dainty and sweet. We represent small sounds as great and deep; likewise great sounds extenuate and sharp; we make divers tremblings and warblings of sounds, which in their original are entire. We represent and imitate all articulate sounds and letters, and the voices and notes of beats and birds. We have certain helps which set to the ear do further the hearing greatly. We have also strange and divers artificial echoes, reflecting the voice many times, and as it were tossing it; and some that give back the voice louder than it came; some shriller, and some deeper; yea some rendering the voice differing in the letters or articulate sound from that they receive. We have also means to convey sounds in trunks and pipes, in strange lines and distances.Francis Bacon, The New Atlantis (1624)
