LITERARY NOTICES. 



851 



reason is that enough guns are not always 

 brought into action and fired simultaneously, 

 but there may be also minor reasons. He 

 inserts an estimate of the cost of two ex- 

 periments in which two hundred siege-guns 

 should be used, making the amount $160,000 

 for the two. After this mode of causing 

 precipitation had become systematized, he 

 estimates that " a good rain-storm " would 

 cost less than $21,000. 



The Septonate and the Centralization op 

 the Tonal System. By Julius Klauser. 

 Milwaukee: William Rohlfing & Sons. 

 Price, $3. 



It is no exaggeration of the condition of 

 an average musical student that Mr. Klauser 

 describes in the introduction to this work. 

 After pursuing the study of music for ten, 

 fifteen, or twenty years, he may still be un- 

 able " to tell you what the intervals, chords, 

 rhythms, and meters are that you dictate 

 for oral discrimination." He has learned to 

 use his voice or some instrument. His eye, 

 hand, or vocal organs may be trained, but 

 the cultivation of his ear has been left to 

 chance. " Students are not taught, nor do 

 they learn, to hear." A system of teaching 

 which turns out pupils ignorant of the ele- 

 ments of their art, and liable to be embar- 

 rassed by simple questions, must be faulty. 

 The author of this volume holds that there 

 are two fundamental errors in musical train- 

 ing: one, the inverse method of instruc- 

 tion, in which a pupil is taught to perform 

 before he can listen intelligently ; the other, 

 the usual presentation of the tonal system. 

 As a remedy for the first, the beginner should 

 be taught to hear exactly and discriminate 

 from the start. A corrective for the second 

 demands a reconstruction of our tonal con- 

 ceptions. " The scale is too complex a unit ; 

 ... its combinations are too multiple for 

 any beginner to grasp as a whole." After 

 much investigation of tonal relations and 

 analysis of the mental process of musical 

 reproduction, Mr. Klauser has fixed upon 

 the scale-half or tetrachord, and the union 

 of two scale-halves with a common central 

 tonic, as simpler elements for tone-study. 

 To the latter group of tones he gives the 

 name of septonate, " seven principal tones in 

 their natural positions," three preceding and 

 three following a tonic. Other divisions of 

 tones, which are the framework of the sys- 



tem, are the key-group and the tone-stratum. 

 The key-group contains seventeen tones, 

 consisting of the septonate and ten other 

 tones ; five sharps, called w/)-mediates, and 

 five flats, the doiow-mediates. Ten more 

 tones, named secondary intermediates, added 

 to the key-group, complete the tone-stratum. 

 A new theory for tone discrimination is in- 

 troduced in the Principle of Progression. 

 In hearing a series of tones, "we are dis- 

 posed to progress on certain tones and to 

 stop on others." The tones from which we 

 feel a desire to move are called by-tones; 

 those which create a feeling of rest are 

 harmonics. The author explains these phe- 

 nomena as the result of the antagonism or 

 agreement which certain tones have with the 

 melodic phrase already in mind, and which 

 he calls " the governing voice." 



The author argues the need of a new 

 notation, and may hereafter attempt that 

 Sisyphean task. Prefixed to this volume is 

 an interesting and suggestive essay on a 

 higher education in music. Some experi- 

 ences in training children deficient in tone- 

 sense deserve attention. The relation of 

 music and mind is exhibited in the fact that 

 music must be executed in a prescribed 

 tempo " the moments of cognition are lim- 

 ited." So "a concentrative power without 

 parallel " is cultivated. In concluding the 

 volume, various views of the origin of music 

 are given, the author believing that music 

 antedates speech, as the chromatic intervals 

 of the wind and the melodious phrases of 

 birds preceded the existence of man. 



Elements of Crystallography. By George 

 H. Williams, Associate Professor in the 

 Johns Hopkins University. New York : 

 Henry Holt & Co. Pp. 250. Price, 

 $1.25 net. 



This text-book, which is offered to stu- 

 dents of chemistry, physics, geology, and 

 mineralogy, contains as much of the subject 

 as any one who does not intend to make 

 mineralogy his life-work will need to know. 

 It describes the several crystallographic sys- 

 tems, taking up a considerable number of 

 the combinations possible under each, and 

 giving diagrams and symbols. There are 

 also chapters on Crystal Aggregates and Im- 

 perfections of Crystals, and an Appendix on 

 Zones, Projection, and the Construction of 

 Crystal Figures. To the student of miner- 



