Organs are likewise made without keys, but with barrels, on which are a great number of pins and staples of flat brass wire, and of different lengths. The bar rel being turned by means of a crank or winch, the wires that communicate with the valves in the wind•chest are acted upon by the pins and staples; which hold down the valves for a longer or a shorter time, according to the duration of the notes they respectively govern. On these barrels, which are made to shift at plea sure,from ten to fifteen tunes are usually made, by the foregoing means. The winch not only turns the barrel, but also works a pair of bellows, by which the wind chest is applied. This instrument is call ed the hand, or barrel-organ, and is very common in our streets. See ORGAN.
A very small sort is constructed with only a couple of octaves, or less, the whole apparatus fitting into a box little longer than a mahogany tea and sugar chest: this is called a bird-organ ; its notes are peculiarly melodious and soft; much resembling those of the flageolet. All bird-fanciers keep one or more of this description, for the purpose of teaching canaries, bull-finches, &e. to sing popular airs.
The Mouth Organ, or Pane Pipes, are well known; being so often played as an accompaniment to organs, &c. in our streets. They are of various sizes and extent; some being nearly three octaves; a few have a chromatic scale, at least for the adjunct keys; i.e. those of the fourth and fifth. The tones of the mouth-organ are certainly agreeable, but are beat heard at a distance ; when, either as an aid to the organ, or performing pieces arranged for several mouth-organs, as is very com mon, they have a very pleasing effect ; when played in a room, the notes are very piercing, and the salailations are highly offensive. The antiquity of the mouth organ seems to be fairly established; it is to be seen on most ancient coins relating to music, and above all to Pan, from whom they derived their name ; that fabulous deity was usually represented with his " pipe of unequal reeds in one hand, and a shepherd's crook in the other." The simple construction of the instrument renders it highly probable, that it is of much older date than we can trace; but we may reasonably feel some surprise, that the great organ should have to boast of existence even many centuries prior to the birth of our Saviour. Organs were supposed to have been invented by Ctesi. bius ; but as to their construction we are left under great doubts; all we can dis cover is, that they had many pipes, into which the wind was. impelled by water.
A modern author seems to infer that the air was acted upon by water, so as to be compressed, as in the air vessels of our fire engines. This, though a plausible mode of solving the doubt, does not prove completely satisfactory, because we have strong reasons for concluding, that the ancients were not acqnainted with that part of our pneumatic practice. The air pump was not known until Otto de Gue riche, a consul of Magdeburgh, exhibited his inventions before the emperor' and the states of Germany, in the year 1654 ; and the fire-engine was first invented by Zachary Greyl in 1721, improved upon by Dr Godfrey, and gradually brought to perfection by the successive adcistions and inventions of Mohnen in 1725; Jacob Leufold, ditto; Neevesham in 1744, lz.c. he. We are rather inclined to believe, that the air was acted upon in the an cient keras, or hydraulic organ, much in the same manner as in the French smelting furnaces, i. e. by water falling down a long pipe, and dashing on a large stone, placed in the centre of a small chamber at its bottom ; whence the air thus drawn down, by the stream or suc cession of driblets, rushes into the fur naces with a violent and equable current. Whatever the mode might have been, the practice of constructing organs, whose sounds proceeded from hydraulic apparatus, appears certain,from the many records all tending precisely to the same point. The performers were term ed aseula Plato, and PI °tins, his CCU :matador, mentions a wind instrument in use among the Greeks, which appears to have borne a strong resemblance to the modern organs ; it was calld panarmoni• um, and was so contrived, that every aperture was capable of yielding three or more sounds. The masrakitha, of the ancient Hebrews, was likewise an imam. ment composed of various pipes, fixed is a chest, open at top, but close at the bot tom, where they had small perforations, communicating with a wind tube, into which the performer blew, stopping those pipes that were not to sound with his fingers. In the foregoing references to remote antiquity, we discover the basis of our majestic instruments ; but the swell, which, by means of a slider, aug ments or smothers the sounds at pleasure, is the invention of modern mechanics, who have entirely brought the organ to wonderful perfection.