386 



SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. XXIII. No. 584; 



ferent points. Besides the introductory chap- 

 ters there are the following headings : General 

 Polarized Oscillations, Interference, Huy- 

 ghen's Principle, Diffraction, Reflection and 

 Refraction at Isotropic Media, and Propaga- 

 tion of Waves through Crystalline Media. 

 In accordance with the general plan men- 

 tioned above, no application of theory to in- 

 strumental methods is anywhere given. The 

 large amount of ground left for the second 

 part will, if covered in the same detail, make 

 the treatise as a whole the most ambitious and 

 extensive available in English; and while one 

 can not but admire the power and generality 

 of treatment, to the present reviewer, at least, 

 the book seems greatly handicapped by the 

 attitude already referred to and by a certain 

 rather formidable style. 



C. E. M. 

 Madison, Wis., 

 February, 1906. 



Catalogue of the Crosby Brown Collection of 

 Musical Instruments of all Nations. IV., 

 Historical Groups. Gallery 39. New York, 

 The Metropolitan Museum of Art. 1905. 

 Pp. xvii + 168 ; pi. 12, partly folded. 

 Earlier parts of the catalogue of this rich 

 collection have been reviewed in Science. 

 The present volume deals with a fifth gallery 

 opened to the public in 1903. The exhibits 

 in it include: (1) a number of prehistoric 

 instruments, originals or copies; (2) a dozen 

 plaster casts of ancient sculptures showing 

 musical instruments; (3) about 230 drawings 

 of instruments used from the earliest times to 

 the thirteenth century A.D., grouped by types 

 and countries to the east or west of Assyria 

 and Egypt; (4) the leading European instru- 

 ments with their kindred forms in different 

 countries; (5) details of the construction of 

 the violin, flute, cornet, piano and organ; (6) 

 some keyboard instruments, in part recently 

 acquired, showing especially the development 

 of the piano and several of the earliest Amer- 

 ican pianos. 



The mere enumeration of these groups 

 shows that a new stage has been reached in 

 the history of the great collection. Begun 

 merely with the purpose of decorating a music 



room, it soon outgrew private walls and came 

 to include nearly every existing kind of in- 

 strument that could be obtained. These were 

 classified, catalogued and described. But the 

 collection lacked specimens of the almost un- 

 obtainable instruments of ancient and prehis- 

 toric times. This gap is now at least partly 

 filled by the many reproductions and drawings. 

 These latter are of great variety, value and 

 interest; the list of books from which figures 

 are copied is a long one ; but too many of the 

 ' authorities ' get their illustrations at second- 

 hand instead of first-hand, and copies are 

 rarely accurate; the addition or omission of a 

 line by a draftsman who does not thoroughly 

 understand the instrument not infrequently 

 makes the figure unintelligible or misleading. 

 It is unfortunate that the most easily acces- 

 sible references are the voluminous and rather 

 antiquated books by the uncritical Carl Engel. 



A peculiarly interesting feature is the col- 

 lection of partly-finished instruments of the 

 five kinds named above, with the tools and 

 specimens of materials used in their manu- 

 facture; all the parts are carefully named 

 and the exhibit is accompanied by technical 

 descriptions. All this recalls the remarkably 

 full and accurate descriptions of all arts and 

 industries in the great French Encyclopedie 

 before the Revolution. The models of a 

 tubular pneumatic and an electro-pneumatic 

 action for organs are very perfect and illus- 

 trative. 



This volume impresses the reader as mark- 

 ing an advance over the earlier ones; there 

 was here opportunity for a more compre- 

 hensive grouping of instruments illustrating 

 the long story of musical development, and the 

 opportunity has been well used; therefore, 

 much of the book is as useful to the reader 

 anywhere as to the visitor. The copious bibli- 

 ography and several full indexes are note- 

 worthy. Acknowledgments are again made 

 to Mr. Galpin, of England, and for the first 

 time to Miss Fannie Morris, who has done a 

 large part of the work on all the catalogues. 



This series of catalogues being now, we 

 believe, completed, one looks forward with in- 

 terest to see in what way the collection will 

 be utilized by the donor, the authorities or 



