cathedral organs. The Conductor of this journal
has a very quick ear for conversation; but he
finds that the chirp of grasshoppers, when it is
loud in other ears, is unheard by him.

"High notes" and " low notes" are of course
merely figurative expressions of their difference.
The real and physical difference between a deep
or low sound and a sharp, shrill, or high sound,
is that the body which gives out a low note
makes fewer vibrations in a given time than the
body which emits a high note. The more rapid
the vibrations, the shriller the sound; and vice
versa. A short, thin, and tight harp- string,
which vibrates rapidly, produces a higher note
than a longer, thicker, and slacker string, which
vibrates with less rapidity. For the same
reason, a short slim bar of steel gives a sharper
sound, when struck, than a long and thick
one.

Every solid object, then, when struck, makes
a noise. If that noise have a decided and
perceptible pitch, that is, if it can be clearly heard
to take a higher or lower place in the musical
scale, it forms a note. A collection of such
objects of different, successive, and graduated
pitch, may be made to constitute a musical
instrument. The great difficulty lies in the
arrangement of, and the performance upon, the
instrument, when made. Almost every household
utensil and article of furniture sends forth
its note. From the door which creaks to the
tongs which jingle, from the fine-toned frying-
pan to the cracked beer-jug, from the vocal
kettle to the house caldron— all is musical.
The master's very foot has music in it, not only
when he comes up the stair, but when it makes
the scraper sound middle C. The door-bell is
upper G, a little sharp; the poker is A, decidedly
flat if dropped on the hearthstone. The dish-
covers make not discordant chimes, and the
glasses ring a distracted peal as Mary makes a
false step previous to smashing them. The
Harmonious Blacksmith is Handel's interpretation
of what may be hit out from iron. Instead
of drawing music from the spheres, others have
extracted it from toilette articles— videlicet, from
a comb and a curl-paper, under the pressure of
juvenile lips and the inspiration of juvenile
breath.

In short, where there's a will there's a way;
you may win pleasant sounds from almost
everything. Some means of music are so obvious
that they must have been discovered half a dozen
times over by half a dozen people at a time.
Among the very readiest to hand are musical
glasses tuned to scale with water, and the
suspended strips of glass which form the harmonica.
More oriental, and probably older than the
harmonica, are slips of bamboo applied to the
same purpose. Then we have had inventors—
saxophonists— who, taking a hint from Memnon's
statue, have made rock vocal, and beaten sweet
sounds from bits of stone.

The Greek name Xylocarphon, "Wood-
Straw Thing," has been given to a musical
instrument for which the French have no more
poetical name than " Bois-et-paille." It is as if
we were to style a piano " Wood-and-wire," or a
violin " Catgut-and-rosin." Some of our fair
friends, when they have heard it, will devise
some pretty denomination for the tuneful bundle,
which is of Indian origin, improved by a Russian
Pole, one Guzikoff. Its present accomplished
professor and votary is M. Charles de Try,
chapel-master to the Archbishop of Cambrai, who
(not the archbishop) has been delighting
audiences with its singular effects over a considerable
area of the north of France. M. de Try is
no musical charlatan; for, besides fulfilling his
official duties in Cambrai cathedral, he is a
masterly performer on the violoncello himself,
and, more than that, has made a mistressly
violoncellist of his daughter, Mademoiselle Elisa
de Try. It is not often that a young lady,
scarcely seventeen years of age, reminds us of
the tone and expression of Lindley.

"Wood-and-straw" is a collection of sticks
or cylinders of firwood or deal, each stick sounding
its own note when struck. It is a question
whether hard woods, such as box and ebony,
would not answer better, as far as sound is
concerned. They would certainly be handsomer,
and also more expensive. But the smartest
fiddle is not the best. A fair-toned " Wood-and-
straw" of deal would cost from four to five
pounds.

These sticks are not arranged in one single
row, thus, I I I I I, like the bits of glass in a
harmonica; on the contrary, they are strung
together by violin-strings running through their
                                             —¯¯¯—
ends, in several rows thus,  —¯¯¯—   the number
                                            —¯¯¯— )
                                                Â¯Â¯Â¯
neither of the sticks nor of the rows being
indicated by our diagram, but simply their
arrangement. They thus form a sort of wooden
tissue, which, when spread out, is about as big
as a small-sized, ill-shaped, woman's shawl. The
instrument, doubled up, is carried about in a
box, like that in which your London tailor sends
you a suit of clothes per rail, and which also
contains six bundles of straw about as thick as
your wrist, neatly tied together and decorated
with tassels at either end. The softest sides of
the wooden cylinders are made to repose on the
straw, because the hardest side is the most
sonorous. For performance, the instrument is
laid out on a table, with the ends of the sticks,
where they are strung together, resting upon
the bundles of straw. They are thus suspended,
isolated, free to vibrate and utter their voices.
All that is required is the artist with skill to
call them forth.

Wood-and-straw contain three complete
octaves (with sticks for every semi-tone), ranging
from middle B flat to B flat in alto. No stick
has any distinctive mark to tell you what note
it sounds. The piano has short black keys
interspersed amongst its long white ones in clusters
of twos and threes; the harp has red strings to
indicate the Cs, and black strings to mark the
Fs; Wood-and-straw have nothing of the kind.
The performer's eye must have a personal
acquaintance with the position and appearance of
every bit of stick or note. The scale being