148 Scientific Proceedings, Royal Dublin Society. 



tion ; and it would only remain to ascertain by experiment how 

 . rapidly such blows would need to be delivered to maintain ■ a suf- 

 ficient uniform intensity. 



I have for some years had it in conteniplation to make the 

 necessary apparatus for applying this method to the piano, but 

 other occupations have so long prevented me from doing so, that 

 I now mention the subject in the hope that some other person with 

 better opportunities and more leisure will carry out the investiga- 

 tion. 



A perfectly continuous tone would, of course, be produced if 

 the hammer could be made to strike the string every vibration. 

 But it does not seem at all likely that it would be necessary to 

 strike it every vibration — probably not more than once every 

 twenty-five or thirty vibrations, provided that the blow, when it does 

 come, reaches a string which is in precisely the proper phase of its 

 motion. Hence, the condition to be fulfilled is, that the intervals 

 between the blows shall be capable of being tuned into accord, if 

 I may use the phrase, with some multiple of the period of vibra- 

 tion of the string. A mechanism constructed so as to deliver an 

 impact at each swing of a short pendulum, of a balance-wheel, or 

 of a very large tuning-fork, might be adjusted to the string, or the 

 string tuned to it, in the way required ; and an apparatus regulated 

 in this way, if applied to a piano with good repeating action, might 

 be made to impinge directly on one of the ivory keys, which would 

 probably be the easiest way of making a sufiicient preliminary 

 experiment, without a specially- constructed piano. A weight or 

 spring acting on very simple clock-work would suffice as the motive 

 force ; or, perhaps, electricity could be conveniently employed ; but 

 I think it would be found easier to render the arrangement suf- 

 ficiently noiseless with a purely mechanical apparatus, avoiding 

 electricity. Should the ticking or other noise of the apparatus 

 for the preliminary experiment be troublesome, the apparatus 

 will need to be boxed in or the noisy parts placed in an adjoining 

 room. 



If the anticipated result can be attained, an entirely new range 

 of musical effects will be at our disposal, for we shall have within 

 our reach an instrument with the quality of tone of the piano — one 

 of the most pleasing qualities of tone among musical instruments — 

 and on which much of the best organ music can be executed. 



