1. Introduction. The subject of this paper is the propagation of small disturbances in a compressible fluid which is also a conductor of electricity, in the presence of a magnetic field. The characteristic feature of the problem is that it combines sound waves and magneto-hydrodynamic waves. The theory is based on linearized equations which generalize the equations of motion of the theory of sound. The disturbances with which it deals might therefore be called magneto-acoustic waves. Energy dissipation by viscosity, heat conduction and Joule heat is neglected, and so is the displacement current. Even so, a hyperbolic system of seven partial differential equations of the first order is obtained, whose solution requires analysis of considerable complexity.