April 6, 1876] 



NATURE 



443 



MUSICAL INSTRUMENTS AT SOUTH 

 KENSINGTON 



A Descriptive Catalogue of the Musical Instruments in 

 the South Kensington Miiseum. Preceded by an Essay 

 on the History of Musical Instruments. By Carl Eugel. 

 Secqpd Edition. 



THE collection of musical instruments in the Museum 

 at South Kensington is one of considerable and of 

 varied interest. Consisting, as it does mainly, of the 

 instruments employed by various nations within the last 

 {^w centuries, it exemplifies the improvements in art and 

 the gradual development of scientific principles in con- 

 struction. But it includes also instruments of more remote 

 dates such as would range within " the middle ages," and 

 a few of prehistoric period. In the last case a similarity 

 of musical instruments and of musical systems may be 

 an important assistance in determining the ethnology of 

 an extinct people, while the practice of opposite systems 

 by neighbouring races will be a strong inference that they 

 sprung from different stocks. 



The excellent Catalogue, of which we have now a 

 second edition, includes a prefatory essay by M. Carl 

 Engel on the early history of musical instruments, and he 

 has enhanced its utility by adding the scale of notes 

 which many of the instruments would produce. This 

 was practicable in the case of pipes, flutes, or other wind 

 instruments from extant examples, but not with such as 

 v/ere stringed, because they would not remain in tune. 



When a nation is found to have employed instruments 

 constructed for the diatonic octave scale, such as the 

 intervals of our A B C D E F G A, it is a proof that the 

 possessors practised harmony, although it may have been 

 but to a limited extent. The reason is that the fourth and 

 seventh notes of such scales require different basses to 

 the others, and would not be agreeable to the ears 

 without the addition of such basses. On the other 

 hand, if we find a scale of but five notes within an 



octave, the two omitted will be the fourth and seventh 

 of the scale on that very account. We may in such cases 

 conclude with safety that melody was the chief attraction 

 to the people, and that harmony was either unknown or 

 little appreciated. 



We should bear in mind that the most ancient recorded 

 octave scale of Greece and of Northern Asia and Africa is 

 the minor ; but there may have been exceptional cases of 

 the use of the major, because the ancient Greeks had a five- 

 note major as well as a five-note minor scale in their 

 chromatic system. Nevertheless, it can have been but 

 little practised by them in early ages because it was never 

 admitted into their precepts. There is no Greek treatise 

 upon music which includes the major scale ; and yet the 

 transition from one to the other was most easy, for who- 

 ever begins upon the third note, instead of the first, of any 

 minor scale, will transform it into its " relative " major. 

 These are the particular points to be borne in mind in 

 estimating remote dates for musical instruments. 



Fig. I. — Ancient Pipe of the ChiriquL (Centra America.) 



And now to apply these principles to three of the 

 instruments of different races discovered in Central and 

 in South America. Among the ancient graves of the 

 Chiriqui in Central America small pipes and whistles of 

 pottery, which produce several sounds, have been found, 

 of which one has six finger-holes, but in that case the 



Fig. 2. — Pipes of the Aztecs. 



notes have not been ascertained, while others have four 

 notes, E F G A. These form the ancient Greek tetrachord, 

 and the Greeks acquired their knowledge of music from the 

 nations of Northern Asia and Northern Africa, especially 

 from Egyptians, Chaldaeans, and Phoenicians. Can any 

 one of these nations have been in contact with the 



Chiriqui of Central America? The scale is fitted for 

 chanted recitations rather than sufficient for music proper. 

 F would be the chanting note of the above, with the 

 power of ascending, for expression, to G and A, and with 

 that of descending to the major seventh, E in preparing 

 for a close. In this sense the notes are pure, good, and 



