33 On v'llrativg Strings, Tuning-Forks^ &c. 



piece of furniture (often to bruise and damage it) and then 

 set upright thereon to sound, by the adoption of a very small 

 and slender steel tuning-fork (that might be carried in a 

 toothpick case) the handle of which being held fast belwceu 

 the fore teeth, tlie two legs of the fork are pinched towards 

 each other with some force between the thumb and finger 

 (during which the lips may be used to assist in holding it) 

 and suddenly let go, by which it seems, that vibrations are 

 excited in the teeth and bones of the jaws of the operator, 

 which effectually give him the sound, without its being 

 audible to any other person, and who has also his two hands 

 at full liberty for the necessary tuning operations. Mr. 

 Hawkins did, and perhaps now does, manufacture thci^e 

 useful and elegant motith lunivg-forks for sale. 



The above facts tend strongly to siiow, that improvements 

 in the strength and quality of tone in our stringed instru- 

 ments are to be sought for in the sonorous or elastic quali- 

 ties of the materials of which the frames and supports of 

 the strings, and their cases too perhaps are made, and in 

 their soundness and perfection of framing and workman- 

 ship, a thina; indeed pretty well understood in the trade of 

 instrument-making, and not in the temper or quality of the 

 metallic strings that are used to excite the wood to sound, 

 as Earl Stanhope has for a longtime fondly imagined, and 

 has I am told, gone so far as to the manufacturing of steel 

 wire on purpose, at his country seat, for the making of in- 

 struments w'ith single strings that are to out-do those with 

 two or three that are in common use, and to whom perhaps 

 these hints may not be unimportant. 



Mr. William Burdy's Patent Scheme, (see the Monthly 

 Magazine for last month, p. 573,) of covering both metal 

 and cat-gut strings with platina wire to increase \.\\^\r lueight 

 and specific gravity, with the view *' to increase the power 

 of vibration," though he says " it is found, that the purity 

 and power of tone is increased ivilh the quantity (of lapped 

 platina wire) used," I am inclined to consider as very liable 

 to fail of its professed object, on the principle above stated ; 

 having, T confess, but slight faith in what patent specifica- 

 tions state, to have been found or proved by experiments, 

 after the many similar declarations that I have read for 

 years past, respecting the " gaining of power," perpetual 

 motions and other equally absurd and iiripossible things, 

 for which as well as old inventions, any persons may freely 

 take out patents, if they can but pay the fees of office. 



'J'his passive kind of elasticity in the fibres of wood, 

 bone, &CC. which thus fits them to receive and transmit to 

 the ear vibrations of auy given velocity, while stretched 

 strings and columns of air in pipes, 8:c. can only yield 



