What was the sounding board

I recently spoke to the students of the Our Generation Training Center about the "sounding boards" used by early preachers. I mentioned what the boy Spurgeon had talked about. I thought that you might like to see the source of the discussion.

The pulpit was glorious as “the tower of the flock.” Over it hung a huge sounding-board: I used to speculate as to what would become of grandfather if it ever dropped down upon him.

C. H. Spurgeon, C. H. Spurgeon’s Autobiography, Compiled from His Diary, Letters, and Records, by His Wife and His Private Secretary, 1834–1854, vol. 1 (Cincinatti; Chicago; St. Louis: Curts & Jennings, 1898), 25.

SOUND´ING-BŌARD, n. A board or structure with a flat surface, suspended over a pulpit to prevent the sound of the preacher’s voice from ascending, and thus propagating it farther in a horizontal direction.

Noah Webster, Noah Webster’s First Edition of An American Dictionary of the English Language. (Anaheim, CA: Foundation for American Christian Education, 2006).