HARMONICA, a musical instrument of a fascinating quality of sound, invented by Benjamin Franklin, the sound of which was produced from glass in the shape of a cup, or half globe, which was put into a revolving motion on its center, while the rim was touched by the finger. Franklin, in a letter dated July 13, 1762, to padre Baccaria, at Turin, mentions the history of his inventi,on. It had already been known that beauti ful sounds could be produced by friction of the finger on the rim of an ordinary drink ing glass. An Irishman, named Puckeridge, was the first who bit on the idea of playing airs on a row of glasses, which he tuned by putting water into each. He per formed publicly in London; but he and his glasses were burned in the great fire in Loudon in 1750. When Franklin finished his invention, lie found an excellent per former in a Miss Davis, to whom he made a present of his harmonica. Miss Davis, in 1765, performed on the harmonica in Paris, Vienna, and all the large cities of Germany with great effect. This fascinating instrument found many admirers, but none of them
ever succeeded in improving it. The compass of its notes was from C to F, including all the chromatic semitones. The producing of the sound by the points of the fingers produced such an effect on the nerves of the performer as in some instances to cause fainting fits. All attempts to make the harmonica, through means of keys, easier for amateurs, ended in failure, as no substance was found to act as a substitute for the human finger, which doubtless imparted an expression to the sound which no dead substance could possess. The harmonica gave rise to a host of similar instruments by Chladini, Kaufmann, Rieffelsen, and others, which were not eminently successful. Other instruments of no merit or importance took the same name, but had not the most remote resemblance to the original. The harmonica was somewhat similar to the instrument now known as musical-glasses.