108 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 



board, wherever support or resistance may be required. The sounding board 

 is thus protected from the pressure of the bridge and the effect of the atmo- 

 sphere ; and, being kept more true in its relation to the strings, the sounds 

 produced by the striking of the keys are more uniform in their results, have 

 less tendency to get out of tune, and, from the additional vibratory structure, 

 are fuller, rounder, and more musical in quality. The touch is correspondingly 

 improved, as the strings respond to the slightest touch of the hammer. 



Improved Violin Bow By Samuel F. French, of Franklin, Vt. When the 

 musician wishes to execute a delicate passage upon the violin, he turns the 

 bow over, so that only the edge hairs will scrape the strings. The present 

 improvement consists in attaching the ends of a few of the hairs to a spring 

 pin, placed in the handle of the bow ; whenever a fine tone is wanted the 

 operator compresses his hand and pushes out the phi, and thus separates, or 

 throws out beyond their fellows, those hairs that are connected with the 

 pin. The music produced by the separated hairs will be of the most delicate 

 nature. By loosening the hand the pin instantly flies in, and brings all the 

 hairs instantly together again. This improvement does not interfere with the 

 straining of the bow. 



Musical Notation. Mr. W. Striby, of London, has recently taken out a 

 patent for a new system of musical notation, the object of which is to reduce 

 ah 1 the musical clefe, scales, and systems to one single scale; or, rather, a 

 single system of scales. A new shaped set of clefs is adopted, by which a 

 given note will retain the same relative position upon the staves for ah 1 instru- 

 ments and clefs ; and, instead of using only five hues in a stave, he employs 

 a greater number, having one called a "union line, "differing from the others 

 in size or color, to render it conspicuous, to enable a person to distinguish the 

 position of the notes more readily. 



Registering Music. Composers and extemporizers of pianoforte music have 

 long been hi want of some contrivance that should register the notes of a 

 musical composition as fast as they were struck upon the instrument. Many 

 attempts have been made to produce such an apparatus, but never, we believe, 

 with real practical success. Then: parts have generally been too complicated 

 and uncertain for utility. An invention, by Joseph C. Day, of Hackettstown, 

 N. J., seems to effectually overcome all difficulties. It consists in placing 

 across the top of the piano a frame, in which an endless apron of paper or 

 other substance is made to revolve by means of a weight or spring. A series 

 of light perpendicular rods extend down from the frame, the lower ends of 

 which rest, one upon each key. The upper ends of the rods are furnished 

 with markers ; whenever a key is pressed the rod which rests upon it also 

 falls, and its marker touches the revolving paper, leaving a mark indicative of 

 the note touched. When the finger is removed, the key rises and carries up 

 the marker away from the apron. If the paper is lined off laterally and lon- 

 gitudinally, the composition may be easily read and copied by the operator. 

 The length of the notes will be shown by the length of the mark. 



Portfolio for Binding Sheet Music. In an invention for the above purpose, 

 patented by James Shaw, of Providence, R. I., a roller, constructed of wood, 

 is permanently attached to the back of the portfolio, on the inner side of the 



