592 



SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XXVII. No. 



geothermal gradient will be mere speculative 

 hypotheses. Alfred C. Lane 



Lansing, Mich. 



SPECIAL ARTICLES 



THE EEDISCOVERY OP A LOST AET AND A FEW 

 NOTES ON THE THEORY OF THE VIOLrN 



Shortly before the discovery of America 

 they were using, on the gondolas in Venice, 

 a perfectly transparent, lustrous, orange-red 

 varnish. It is reasonable to assiune that the 

 great beauty of this flame-colored material, 

 on the handsome figured wood used, prompted 

 the subsequent lavish extravagance in their 

 decorations, that almost ruined the owners 

 and was so universal, that in the sixteenth 

 century a sumptuary edict was passed by the 

 grand council compelling the use of black 

 only on all gondolas. The principal use, then, 

 for this lustrous varnish having been done 

 away with, the price fell to a point where the 

 cabinet-makers and others could use it for 

 certain pui-poses. 



The historical ceremony, " The Wedding of 

 Venice to the Adriatic," has been presei-ved 

 to us on canvas by a painting of this gorgeous 

 scene made at the time, in which can be seen 

 the color of this varnish on the hull of the 

 royal gondola. The varnish itself can be seen 

 on the wood of an old figure-head of one of 

 these boats (preserved in the museum) where 

 the black paint has been chipped off. The 

 cast-off varnish had not long to wait for a 

 market, as the violin came into existence at 

 this time, and the now cheap varnish found 

 immediate favor with the violin makers of 

 Italy, and was used exclusively by them until 

 the supply at Venice was exhausted, about the 

 year llho. 



Tradition has it that a Venetian varnish 

 dealer, in reply to solicitations from Cremona 

 on the subject, said : " My supply is exhausted, 

 I know not what it is, nor where it came 

 from." 



It is possible that this inquiry came from 

 Stradivarius himself. If so it might account 

 for the much more sparing coats of varnish 

 he put on his violins at this time, than earlier 

 • — ^he may have already begun to husband his 

 supply. 



Italian furniture of the seventeenth cen- 

 tury, still extant, has varnish of this character 

 upon it, but since about the time when the old 

 Cremona violin varnish was last used, diligent 

 investigation fails to find any article whatever 

 with this material upon it. 



By carefully comparing the physical prop- 

 erties of the varnish on any of these older 

 articles, with that on a Cremona violin, a 

 striking similarity is at once seen, and no 

 effort is necessary to conclude that the two 

 are identical. The materials, then, must have 

 been imported into Venice, as no colored gums 

 or resins of this texture are produced in Italy, 

 they being certainly of tropical origin. The 

 proximity of Africa to Italy naturally sug- 

 gests the source of supply of these gums. 

 (Subsequent experiments, with African gums, 

 produced a red varnish not to be distinguished 

 from that on a 1715 Stradivarius.) 



Certain characteristics of this varnish are 

 known, and how these affect tone has been 

 carefully tested, and the most distinguishing 

 feature seems to be that it damps out the 

 upper harmonics, leaving the pure funda- 

 mental tone to be heard. 



In drawing the bow across the strings of 

 any violin, a certain fairly constant fraction 

 of the energy is transformed into sound — a 

 portion of this is carried by the fundamental 

 tone, while the rest goes into the upper har- 

 monics. Now, the preponderance of these 

 upper harmonics gives to a violin its harsh- 

 ness. If a large proportion of the total energy 

 is dissipated in these higher harmonics, the 

 amount of fundamental tone reaching the 

 hearer will be small; if, on the other hand, 

 the large proportion of the total energy is 

 forced into the fundamental, the instrument 

 will have great carrying power. 



Had it not been for this compound, known 

 as the old Italian varnish, the world would 

 not have heard of the town of Cremona, nor 

 of her sons Amati, Guarnerius and Stradi- 

 varius, and in aU probability the violin itself 

 would have passed out of existence, after a 

 very brief experimental stage, like most other 

 musical instruments of these early times, such 

 as lutes, lyres, gigues,- crwths, etc. 



The writer, after a great deal of experi- 



