AEOLIAN INSTRUMENTS. 75 



circle, which can be made of any form to afford an elastic constraint. 

 There is here a rod which forms a prolongation of the vibrator, and 

 upon the reed a weight which can be turned upon a screw. By means 

 of this weight the pitch of the note can be regulated to the utmost 

 nicety, nor is there any chance of that being deranged ; and by the 

 constraint of this ring can be given any tone which I may desire. 

 This little object embodies all the capabilities and all the phenomena 

 characteristic of the asolian sounds ; and when I speak of an seolian 

 sound, I do not mean necessarily that of the seolian harp, but all that 

 class of phenomena which occur whenever wind is applied to strings 

 directly or indirectly. Here is a board illustrating the progress of 

 wind and string amongst civilized nations. First of all, there is the 

 earliest form of the asolian harp, in which the string was exposed to the 

 action of the wind. Then, next, Professor Robison used a flattened 

 reed, which was exposed to the wind along its whole length a ribbon 

 lying in a long narrow slit, and by that means the fitful sound of the 

 asolian harp was reduced to one steady note. The next notable 

 change was that which took place under Sir Charles Wheatstone, 

 and I have here the original apparatus which was used by him, by 

 which the wind was concentrated on one part of the string's length. 

 There is another form in which the wire of a pianoforte was used, but 

 in other respects it did not vary. At least six names are connected 

 with those two forms, amongst whom I may mention Sir Charles 

 Wheatstone, Mr. Greene, and Isoard. Here for the first time is used 

 a reed in connection with a string, and that was used thirty years 

 ago by a man named Pape. It consists of a free reed as used in 

 harmoniums, and a string apart from it, the connection being effected 

 by means of silk thread, so that the reed acts only upon the string in 

 the backward motion. Then comes another form in which the string 

 could be played upon by hand. That was made by a man called 

 Julian twenty years ago. Here again is a string flattened at one 

 point to a tongue, which lay between flanges in a frame, and that 

 could be played upon as in a violin. The method upon which I 

 founded all my investigations is here shown. It consists of a reed- 

 tongue, instead of a flattened portion of a string attached to the end 

 of a string. That was first invented by Mr. Farmer, our organist at 

 Harrow. Here is the reed and string brought into direct and rigid 



