MUSICAL INSTRUMENTS— THE ORGAN. 623 



ly as applied to schools and scliool children ; but, in addition to 

 these sanitary measures as applied to the mass, inspection of in- 

 dividual cases should be insisted upon. How many useful eyes 

 might have been saved to the commonwealth if they had been ex- 

 amined and treated early in life by a competent oculist ! 



It is a rule — to which there are few exceptions — that, in addi- 

 tion to those defects which all eyes possess in common, the human 

 organ of sight is, about the school age, prone to certain diseases, 

 arising from inherent anomalies of structure, from heredity, from 

 the results of infantile diseases, and from other causes. It is also 

 true that many, if not most, of these dangers to which the eye in 

 after-life is subject may be warded off by precautions suitable to 

 individual cases. Thus the myope, or short-sighted person, should 

 exercise care of a kind quite different from that which is suitable 

 to the hyperope, or long-sighted individual ; while the unfortunate 

 astigmatic child (with " blurred " sight) should follow a prophy- 

 lactic programme of a kind distinct from either; and so on through 

 the list of possible ocular defects, which, although they commonly 

 elude even the watchful eye of parent or guardian, are still pos- 

 sible sources of future disease. The advance of ophthalmological 

 science has reached that point where one may read in the defect- 

 ive eyes of childhood the record of a large percentage of the im- 

 paired, restricted, or lost vision of later years. 



MUSICAL INSTRUMENTS— THE ORGAN. 



By DANIEL SPILLANE. 



THE DEVELOPMENT OF AMEEIOAN INDUSTRIES SINCE 

 COLUMBUS. XIIL 



THE organ is the most magnificent and comprehensive of all 

 musical instruments. While the pipes of Pan — aside from 

 that mythical personage — indicate a very ancient use of pipes as 

 a means of producing musical sounds, the " water-organ of the 

 ancients " furnishes to the student of organ history the first tan- 

 gible clew regarding the remote evolution of the instrument. In 

 the second century the magripha, an organ of ten pipes with a 

 crude key-board, is said to have existed, but accounts of this in- 

 strument are involved in much obscurity. It is averred that an 

 organ — the gift of Constantine — was in the possession of King 

 Pepin of France in 757 ; but Aldhelm, a monk, makes mention of 

 an organ with " gilt pipes " as far back as the year 700. Wolston 

 speaks of an organ containing 400 pipes, which was erected in the 

 tenth century in England. This instrument was blown by " thir- 

 teen separate pairs of bellows." It also contained a large key- 



