142 
THE YOUNG SCIENTIST. 
within our knowledge. The mattei* does not con- 
sist of mere clippings, but of carefully edited 
matter, which is of real value both to old and 
young. Here we find the Romance of Reynard 
the Fox, which will interest the little folks for its 
story, and the older people for its folk-lore, and 
the many allusions which have been made to it in 
the better classes of literature. Every member 
of the family will find something in it ; the little 
ones lisping for a story will find Jack the Giant 
Killer and John Gilpin ; older ones will find the 
story of Romulus and Remus, and still older 
ones may read with pleasure, as we have done, 
the Romance of Reynard the Fox and the story of 
Robin Hood. The book forms a handsome 
quarto of nearly 400 pages. 
E. & F. N, Spon have now ready a Descriptive 
Catalogue of Books for Mechanical Engineers, 
and will send it^free, on application. Address 
4i6 Broome Street, New York. 
An Ingenious ^olian Harp. 
In a former number of the Young Scientist 
we g-ave very full directions for constructing an 
asolian harp, and our readers vyill no doubt be 
interested in the following account of a rather 
complicated but very ingenious instrument of 
this kind. It seems that some time ago a son of 
Mr. George Ellwauger, of Kochester, N. Y., 
while traveling in Germany, became impressed 
with the agreeable combinations of tones pro- 
duced by aeolian harps, and, on returning home, 
mentioned the circumstance to his fatlier. Tlie 
latter soon conceived the idea of erecting an 
seolian harp on his tower near Mount Hope. A 
suitable man to make the instrument was found 
in Professor C. Dennebecq. The sounding-board 
is to be of Norway pine, seven feet high, and the 
back of hard curled maple of forty-five years' 
cut. These woods are all imported, the slow 
growth of European woods giving them a tex- 
ture better adapted tonmsical instruments than 
the home products. 
As a whole, the instrument is to be tube- 
shaped, with eight slots in the tube. The latter 
is to be surmounted with a lightning rod, eight 
feet high, with a weather-cock attached. Right 
here is where Professor Dennebecq introduces a 
new design of his own ; for with every turn of 
the weather-cock a slot is presented to the wind 
and a string is made to vibrate. The first string 
that is mad(i to vibrate in this manner gives the 
fundamental note, while the other will sound a 
third and give the acute octave to the first. 
Prof. Dennebecq has no doubt as to the suc- 
cess of his instrument, and thinks when com- 
pleted and placed on the tower it can be heard 
on still nights for a distance of three miles up 
the river. He made a similar instrument for the 
Sorbonne in Paris, which, however, is not auto- 
matic, but must be arranged by the janitor be- 
fore it will work. 
The constructor of these instruments is a pu- 
pil of the celebrated Villaume, and gave three 
years of his life to learn the trade of repairing 
his own violin. This violin was one of Steiner's 
make, who was a pupil of Amati, and whose vio- 
lins have a reputation that is world-wide. Prof. 
Dennebecq himself has acquired a reputation as 
a violin maker and restorer, and is conversant 
with the mechanism not only of this, but of sev- 
eral other musical instruments. 
Before leaving the subject we may mention 
tiie colossal harp erected at Milan in 1786 by the 
Abbe Gattoni. He stretched seven strong wires, 
tuned to the notes of the gamut, from the top of 
a tower, sixty feet high, to the house of a Signor 
Moscate, who was interested in the success of 
the experiment. This apparatus, called the 
"giant's harp," in windy weather yielded 
lengthened peals of harmonious music. In a 
storm it was sometimes heard at a distance of 
several miles. 
In many places where the telegraph wires are 
strained sufficiently tight, these structures form 
gigantic aeolian harps. As a general rule, how- 
ever, they are not strained tight enough to give 
a full sound, and they have no sounding boards. 
. o . 
The Toad. 
The whirligig of time brings about strange 
revenges, and among them may be noted the 
recent accession into favor of the long-despised 
and much-maligned toad. For centuries these 
harmless animals have been persecuted and re- 
viled till their very name has passed into a by- 
word descriptive of disgust and loathing. At 
last, how^ever, their unobtrusive virtues are 
obtaining recognition, and the value of the un- 
handsome toad as an insect destroyer is now 
generally admitt(id. At the present time a 
'•toad market" is held regularly in Paris, once 
a week, on an open space of ground in the Eue 
Geoffrey St. Hilaire, at the back of the Jardin 
des Plantes, whither the dealers in this novel 
article of commerce bring their wares, carefully 
assorted according to their strength and size, 
and packed by the hundred in baskets of damp 
moss. Whence the supply may be derived is as 
yet a mystery, but it seems clear that they are 
not over-abundant, since those of moderate size 
find ready purchasers at prices ranging from 
seventy-five to eighty francs per hundred. By 
far the greater portion of them are bought up 
for the use of English market gard(mers, and it 
is stated that orders are to hand at Paris for tln^ 
purchase, at current rates, of every basketful 
sent to market.— London Farmer. 
