944 



SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. XV. No. 389. 



ods of the Bureau of Ordnance and of the 

 Bureau of Construction are studied and used 

 after the main course is completed." 



One hundred and five of the hundred and 

 ninety pages are devoted to a description of 

 the drawing outfit, and to general directions 

 as to its use. This portion alone is, fortu- 

 nately, worth the cost of the book, for with- 

 out the sectional models, which are referred to 

 in the later pages and which form so valuable 

 a feature of the Annapolis system, the outside 

 student can hardly derive all the discipline 

 intended from a course based on this work. 

 Preliminary to the work from models two 

 sheets of elementary plane figures are re- 

 quired, the first containing eighteen three- 

 inch squares, filled with straight-line designs 

 only. The second sheet affords about the same 

 amount of practice with compass and irreg- 

 ular curves. 



The book is well and practically illustrated, 

 except in the matter of lettering, in which a 

 standard far too low is set for Government 

 work, not comparing at all favorably with that 

 either of the leading bridge and locomotive 

 companies, or of the draftsmen of the Coast 

 and Geodetic Survey. As a whole, the book 

 is a valuable addition to the literature of 

 graphic science, and is likely to prove espe- 

 cially useful to teachers as a reference work. 

 Frederick IST. Willson. 



Princeton, N. J. 



Preliminary Catalogue of the Crosby-Brown 

 Collection of Musical Instruments of All 

 Nations. I. JSTew York, The Metropolitan 

 Museum of Art, 1901. 8vo. Pp. 94, pi. 12. 

 This little work deserves a hearty welcome 

 both for what it is and for what it forecasts in 

 the future. All persons interested in tracing 

 human development throiigh the ages should 

 know of this splendid collection of more than 

 2,500 instruments, nearly all presented by Mrs. 

 John Crosby-Brown; the more one knows of 

 it, the more he will feel the need of interpre- 

 tation. This need is partly met in the sump- 

 tuous volume piiblished in 1888 by Mrs. 

 Brown and her son. Professor William Adams 

 Brown, 'Miisical Instruments and Their 

 Homes.' Necessarily the work was mainly a 



compilation from writers of all degrees of 

 competency, and since its date considerable 

 new matter has become available, especially 

 on the scientific side of the subject. 



The present pamphlet has a more modest 

 aim. It is a Catalogue of Gallery 27, which 

 contains the Asiatic instruments. Great care 

 has been taken to get the names properly 

 spelled. The arrangement is first by countries, 

 and then by cases; generally a very few lines 

 of description and the dimensions of the in- 

 strimient follow each title; there is no music- 

 al notation. The page is clear, the matter 

 well displayed, and the proof-reading excel- 

 lent. A full index of names, native and En- 

 glish, is provided. Twelve fine half-tone plates 

 add much to the value of the book, and furnish 

 beauty and instruction to those who cannot 

 visit the Museum. Two of the plates show the 

 Cristofori piano, the finer of the only two ex- 

 isting instruments made by the inventor of the 

 piano. Of great interest to the student of 

 scales is the half-page view of case 11, show- 

 ing nearly twenty Japanese flutes with equal- 

 ly spaced holes, and several Pan's-pipes and 

 xylophones that display a rectilinear or sym- 

 mietrical construction, rather than a conform- 

 ity to a law of reciprocals like ours. Those 

 who believe there has been a universal desire 

 for a diatonic scale will find it difficult to 

 explain or explain away the facts that con- 

 front them in this case. 



The future instalments of this catalogue 

 will be awaited with interest; and when it is 

 completed we trust the author's hope may be 

 realized 'to issue an illustrated catalogue in 

 which full justice shall be done to the many 

 features of interest in the collection.' For 

 'full justice' means a work siich as has never 

 been attemped — such a work needs not merely 

 a musician as Petis or Engel or an instru- 

 ment maker like Mahillon, but it needs the 

 cooperation of the archeologist and ethnolo- 

 gist, the physicist, the philologist and the 

 psychologist; and if the philosopher and the 

 artist feel that they too have something to add 

 to the understanding of musical instruments 

 and of the men that made and used them, who 

 shall deny the claim? The unprecedented op- 

 portunity before the Metropolitan Museum 



