1833.] Miscellaneous. 269 
gives HE’ which measures § of A B C the supplement of the former and D’ E”’ 
gives H E'—! A BH considered as Saltepfat B or of § (A B1+18@). The point 4’ 
corresponds in some degree to a pole and D, D’, and D”’ if joined from an equila- 
teral triangle, as a little consideration will shew. . 
Tirhoot, 27th March, 1833. LD: 
Capt. ALrrep Burron, if Iam not mistaken, employs for the trisection of an 
angle a cardigide of which the generating circle is E A D andthe constant quantity 
AB. This curve at any rate answers very well, as will be evident on construction. 
3.—New Patent Improved Piano-Forte. 
Mr. T. Loup, jun. of Philadelphia has invented a new and usefulimprovement 
in the horizontal Piano Forte, whereby the tone is greatly improved, the instru- 
ment is less subject to get out of tune, and the strings are less liable to break, for 
which invention and improvement he has taken out a patent. 
The improvement consists in placing either the action above the strings, or the 
strings and bridges turned upside down above the action. So thatthe hammer in 
striking the string shall act in the direction of the bridge, instead of as at present in 
an opposite direction. Upright Piano Fortes, it may be noticed, are already in 
possession of this improvement.—Arcana of Science and Art. 
We are not disposed to consider this improvement (for an improvement it is, as 
far as tone is concerned) at all efficacious in preventing the instrument going out o¢ 
tune. Every one who knows any thing of the Piano knows that it is by the 
slipping of the round iron pegs in their wooden sockets that a piano gets out of 
tune; the extraordinary thing is that for an evil the source of so much vexation 
and annoyance no remedy should have been yet discovered for, or we should rather 
say applied By the trade : the remedy is in reality as obvious, as is the interest of 
that trade to avoid applying it. We have seen the piano of a gentleman in Cal- 
cutta much strengthened and improved by the adaptation of a cast-iron case to the 
front block in which the pegs are inserted ; in fact if the whole frame could be made 
of a triangle of cast-iron, the piano would be infinitely more durable than it is at 
present, although it is probable that its tone might be prejudiced. 
We must confess, however, that within the last few years, many real improvements 
have been introduced in the adaptation of the Piano to the vicissitudes of our In- 
dian climate: the metal bars, thrown across in the direction of the strain, tend ma- 
terially to prevent the instrument form warping, and by themselves expanding and 
contracting with heat and cold in the same ratio nearly as the wires} they keep the 
latter under an uniform tension, and consequently always in tune ; whereas those 
Pianos, which depend upon a wooden frame alone, require to be tuned with every 
change of weather. Another real improvement in small Pianos has been the introduc- 
tion of the metal plate, to which all the wires are attached: the advantages gained by 
this construction are twofold, the sounding board is left free underneath, and the 
strings of the upper octaves are deprived of that long neutral space between the 
fixed pegs and the bridge, which always caused the upper notes of these instruments 
to flatten much faster than the lower octaves. In fact, the liability to stretch or 
slip, and the chance of flaws or imperfection of elasticity (which are the only causes 
of getting out of tune), being in direct proportion to the length of wire, every wire 
Should have the same proportion beyond the bridge to maintain uniform tune. Some 
ma‘ers have ingeniously made use of the tail pieces of the wires, in grand pianos, to 
produce a doubling of the tone ; the wires beyond the bridge have precisely the 
same length to the fixed pegs as before the bridge, or within the action: on raising 
