In some domes, for instance in a dome at the university of Birmingham, a sound from one end of a diameter is heard very much more loudly quite close to the other end of the diameter than elsewhere, but in St Paul's Lord Rayleigh found that " the abnormal loudness with which a whisper is heard is not confined to the position diametrically opposite to that occupied by the whisperer, and therefore, it would appear, does not depend materially upon the symmetry of the dome.