1. The invention of the swell box by Jordan in 1713;
2. The invention of the horizontal bellows, by Samuel Green, in 1789;
3. The invention of the pneumatic lever by Barker in 1832; and the electro-pneumatic action, by Péschard in 1866; and,
4. The marvelous improvements in mechanism and tone production and control in 1886 to 1913 by Robt. Hope-Jones.
[1] The organ compositions of Frescobaldi, a celebrated Italian organist who flourished 1591-1640, show that the organ must in his time have been playable by the fingers.
CHAPTER II.
THE ORGAN IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY.
Before proceeding further we propose to give a brief description of the construction of the organ at the beginning of the last century and explain the technical terms we shall use later.
As everybody knows, the tone comes from the pipes, some of which are to be seen in the front of the instrument. The pipes are of various shapes and sizes and are arranged in ranks or rows upon the wind-chest. Each of these ranks is called a stop or register. It should be borne in mind that this word stop refers to the row of pipes, and not to the stop-knobs by the keyboard which operate the mechanism bringing the row of pipes into play. Much confusion of ideas prevails on this point, and cheap builders used to take advantage of it by providing two stop-knobs for each row of pipes, thereby making their instruments appear to contain more pipes than were actually there. This practice was at one time very prevalent in the United States.