Revelation, Rationality, Knowledge & Truth — Page 531
ORGANIC SYSTEMS AND EVOLUTION muscle in the middle ear attached to three tiny bones, the malleus, the incus and the stapes, which are responsible for transmitting the sound waves to the internal ear. At each click the bat emits, this muscle pulls aside the stapes which touches the eardrum; hence, no sound of the click is directly transmitted to the internal ear. The frequency of clicks and such momentary breaks of contact is a make and break system which never fails despite its high frequency. . Such bats are known to emit these sounds more than 200 times per second and this muscle can keep pace with these rapid variations. Yet when the sound strikes against a solid object and returns to the ear, the contact of the bone with the drum is immediately renewed so that no echo is ever missed by the bat during the innumerable intervals of disconnection. 5 How it can perform this magic beats comprehension. Imagine, 200 sounds per second with not a ripple transmitted to the internal ear and yet it connects 200 times again in order not to miss a single echo of the returning sound signals. The bat's ear does it in an amazingly complex world of sound and echoes which are delivered in different pitches with different frequencies. . Thousands of bats flying in a small chamber in total darkness continue to click at different pitches. The bats do not interfere with each others' signals as if each sound is tagged with a different frequency that is recognized by every bat. . The conscious command of frequency is the most amazing part of the system. The faster the clicks are emitted, the faster information is updated in fractions of seconds, so that bats can negotiate with perfect ease every interfering object, be it another bat or a physical obstruction. They can safely negotiate through innumerable branches in the lush growth of dark forests without striking against any of them. In the bat caves they can manoeuvre 502