534 



AMERICAN FOREST in 



have held tlu- [dace. Southern white cedar was once 

 more popular than spruce as sounding boards, but it is 

 not so now. 



The piano is not the only musical instrument which 

 profits by the resonance of wood. The pipe organ does 

 it. but probably not so much as formerly. Most pipes 

 arc now made of metal. The quality of wood in a 

 violin has much to do in determining the value of the 

 instrument. The old master makers of violins, like 

 Stradivari, Amati, and Guarneri, selected their wood and 

 prepared it with as much care as they bestowed on the 

 actual shaping and joining. Maple has always been one 

 of the finest violin woods, and it is nearly always com- 

 bined with some softwood like pine or spruce. 



Some of the finest working in wood is done in pro- 

 ducing high class horns for talking machines and music 

 boxes. The horn is a sort of sounding board, correspond- 

 ing to that of the piano. There are very fine instruments 

 which are made without wooden horns, but many persons 

 claim that the wooden horn gives a softness and richness 

 of the tone which is extremely rare. 



The xylophone is a small musical instrument which 

 does not rank very high in science or art. Its name is a 



combination of two Greek words meaning "wood sound." 

 The music which it produces is caused more by the vibra- 

 tions of wood than is the case with most musical instru- 

 ments which utilize the resonant qualities of that material. 

 In most of them the sound is transmitted to the wood 

 from some other medium, and is taken up and increased 

 or purified, and is then passed on ; but in the xylophone, 

 short rods of wood, graduated as to length, are struck 

 with a hammer, or in some other way are made to vibrate, 

 and the tones are the result. Rods of different lengths 

 are arranged to produce different tones. The manufac- 

 turer's success with this instrument, as with most others 

 where the resonance of wood has an important function 

 to perform, depends upon the care with which the wood 

 for the rods are selected, shaped, seasoned, and mounted. 

 Formerly some very large bells were not provided 

 with clappers to strike in the usual way, but as a sub- 

 stitute, beams of wood were swung on the outside, so 

 geared as to strike the bells, end on, and produce the 

 sound. It is not quite certain how much of the sound 

 came from the beam and how much from the bellmetal ; 

 but the metal perhaps deserves most credit though the 



A PI PR ORGAN BUILT OF RED GUM 



The cabinet work of this fine instrument is of red gum, with little effort to display figured wood. Gum lends itself well to large panda ar.d 

 pilasters. Such are usually built up of veneer, with gum as the visible part. The wood's tone is brownish, and it is one of the handsomest in 



this country. 



