Fig. 52.

We believe that these constructive details contain in themselves the grounds on which we based our advice to hesitate before including a swell-box in the design for a small chamber organ. It has been made apparent that it brings with it a considerable increase of bulk, weight, and complication, and that it cannot possess the full compass. We must add that if the bellows are worked by the foot, the use of the swell-pedal at the same time is of course impossible.

The large swells of church organs owe their grandeur of effect to their reed-stops; the trumpet, of which the oboe is a soft echo and our little gamba a faint and humble imitation, the horn or cornopean, and the double trumpet or bassoon, a stop of 16-feet pitch. All reed-stops are quite beyond the range of amateur construction, and each of the above will cost about £25 if purchased from a good maker and made of first-class material. Beautiful as such stops are when made and voiced by highly-skilled workmen, they may easily be unpleasing and even offensive.

Let us add that the twelve notes of the swell manual, below Tenor C, may be made to act on the lower manual by a "choir coupler" (see next section, and Fig. 52); or, if there is a complete pedal Sub-bass or Bourdon of twenty-five or more notes, the silent keys of the swell manual may borrow the pedal notes from CC, 8-feet tone upwards. An easy mechanical movement of squares and trackers will effect this.

Two manuals imply couplers, though we greatly regret the incessant use of these contrivances by modern organists.

Fig. 53.

We shall treat, very briefly, of couplers under three heads, viz. the coupling of—