Inventions in the Century

by William Henry Doolittle

The earliest description appears to be that in the “Spiritalia” of Hero of Alexandria (150-200 B. C.) and Ctesibius of Alexandria was the inventor. A series of pipes of varying lengths were filled by an air-pump which was operated by a wind-mill. Organs were again originated in the early Christian centuries; and a Greek epigram of the fourth century refers to one as provided with “reeds of a new species agitated by blasts of wind that rush from a leathern cavern beneath their roots, while a robust mortal, running with swift fingers over the concordant keys, makes them smoothly dance and emit harmonious sounds.”

The same in principle to-day, but more complicated in structure, “yet of easy control under the hands of experts, fertile in varied symphonious effects, giving with equal and satisfying success the gentlest and most sympathetic tones as well as complete and sublimely full utterances of musical inspiration.”

The improvements of the century have consisted in adding a great variety of stops; in connections and couplers of the great keyboard and pipes; in the pedal part; in the construction of the pipes and wind chests; and principally in the adaptation of steam, water, air, and electricity, in place of the muscles of men, as powers in furnishing the supply of air. Some of the great organs of the century, having three or four thousand pipes, with all the modern improvements, and combining great power with the utmost brilliancy and delicacy of utterance, and with a blended effect which is grand, solemn and most impressive, render indeed this noble instrument the “king” in the realm of music.

In the report of 1895 of the United States Commissioner of patents it is stated that “the autoharp has been developed within the past few years, having bars arranged transversely across the strings and provided with dampers which, when depressed, silence all the strings except those producing the desired chords.

“An ingenious musical instrument of the class having keyboards like the piano or organ has been recently invented. All keyboard instruments in ordinary use produce tones that are only approximately correct in pitch, because these must be limited in number to twelve, to the octave, while the tones of the violin are absolute or untempered. The improved instrument produces untempered tones without requiring extraordinary variations from the usual arrangement of the keys.”

Self-playing musical instruments have been known for more than forty years, but it is within the past twenty-five years that devices have been invented for controlling tones by pneumatic or electrical appliances to produce expressions. Examples of the later of these three kinds of musical instruments may be found in the United States patents of Zimmermann in 1882, Tanaka, 1890, and Gally, 1879.

The science of acoustics and its practical applications have greatly advanced, chiefly due to the researches of Helmholtz, referred to above.

When the nature and laws of the waves of sound became fully known a great field of inventions was opened. Then came the telephone, phonograph, graphophone and gramophone.

The telephone depends upon a combination of electricity and the waves of the human voice. The phonograph and its modifications depend alone on sound waves—the recording of the waves from one vibrating membrane and their exact reproduction on another vibrating membrane.

The acoustic properties of churches and other buildings were improved by the adaptation of banks of fine wires to prevent the re-echoing of sounds. Auricular tubes adapted to be applied to the ears and concealed by the hair, and other forms of aural instruments, were devised.