236 Mr. Willis on the Vowel Sounds, 



tion of the reed against which it beat, with leather. Kratzen- 

 stein succeeded better, by introducing a most important improve- 

 ment in its construction. Instead of allowing the tongue to beat 

 upon the edge of the reed, he made it exactly to fit the opening, 

 leaving it just freedom enough to pass in and out during its 

 vibrations*. By this construction, when carefully executed, the 

 tone of the reed acquires altogether a new character, becoming 

 more like the human voice than any other instrument we are 

 acquainted with, besides possessing within certain limits the 

 useful quality of increasing its loudness, with an increased pres- 

 sure of air without altering its jiitch. 



All the reeds I have made use of are constructed on this 

 principle, in one or other of the forms represented in Figs 1 and 2. 

 They are all attached to blocks fgh furnished with a circular 

 tenon fg, by which they can be fitted into the different pieces 

 of apparatus represented in the plate; their place in all the figures 

 being distinguished by the letter R. In Fig. 1, aft is a tongue of 

 thin brass fixed firmly at its upper extremity a, but capable of 

 vibrating freely in and out of a rectangular aperture in the side 

 of the small bmss tube or reed cerf-j- which it very nearly fits. 

 This is the original construction of Kratzenstein. In Fig. 2, ab 

 is the tongue, attached at a, and capable of vibrating through 

 an aperture, which it very nearly fits, in a brass plate screwed 



' Both these expedients are mentioned by M. Biot {Physique II.) but he has ascribed 

 the first to M. Hamel (p. I70) the second to M. Grenife(p. 17 1) being apparently not at all aware 

 of the existence of these Memoirs of Kratzenstein and Kempelen. There can be very little 

 jjoubt but that Kratzenstein is to be regarded as the true inventor of this anche libre. His 

 paper was published in I78O. See Young's Nat. Ph. Vol. I. p. 783. 



t This brass tube is the reed, I beVieve, in the modern language of organ builders, and 

 ab the tongue; but the term reed is often applied to the whole machine, and as such I have 

 used it in this paper. In fact, in its primitive form, I suspect the whole was cut out of a 

 single piece of reed or cane near a joint as in Fig. 3, which is copied from Barrington's 

 drawing of the reed of the Anglesey Pibcorn {Archael. III. 33.) 



