186 On Musical Temperament, 



actually is, in adjusting the intervals of the octave first tuned, 

 it would occasion little difference in the whole. 



Scholium 2. 



The harmony of the Illds and 3ds in any of the foregoing 

 systems for tlie changeable scale is so much finer than it can 

 possibly be in the common Douzeave, that it seems highly 

 desirable that this scale should be introduced into general use. 

 But the increased bulk and expense attendant on the intro- 

 duction of so many new pipes or strings, together with the 

 trouble occasioned to the performer, in rectifying the scale 

 for music in the different keys, have hitherto prevented its 

 becoming generally adopted. To multiply the number of 

 finger keys would render execution on the instrument ex- 

 tremely difficult ; and the apparatus necessary for transferring 

 the action of the same key from one string or set of pipes to 

 another, besides being complicated and expensive, requires 

 such exactness that it must be continually liable to get out of 

 order. This latter expedient, however, has been deemed 

 the only practicable one, and has been carried into efiect, 

 under different forms, by Dr. Smith, Mr. Hawkes, M. Loesch- 

 man, and others. But Dr. Smith's plan (which is confined to 

 stringed instruments) requires only one of the unisons to be 

 used at once ; while those of the two latter nearly double the 

 whole number of strings or pipes. It deserves an experi- 

 ment, among the makers of imperfect instruments, whether a 

 changeable scale cannot be rendered practicable, at least on 

 the piano forte,* without increasing the number of strings, 



* A method of rendering changeable the sound of the same pipes in the 

 organ, which had occurred to the writer, but which was not inserted above on 

 account of the supposeddifficulty of making the change sufficient in degree, he 

 has since found to have been executed by the Rev. H. Liston, who has succeeded, 

 by means of shaders capable of being brought before the mouths of his pipes by 

 the action of pedals, in giving them three distinct sounds each, varying by two 

 commas. (See the description of his Enharmonic organ, in Recs' Cyc. or Til- 

 loch's Phil. Mag.) His scale embraces 59 intervals to the octave, and is intended 

 to produce perfect harmony in all the keys. But as it will require the use of pedals 

 perpetually, even on the same key, and a ready aad perfect knowledge of imal! 



