Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 11.djvu/713

Rh may at once be made fuller, rounder, sweeter, harder, more brilliant and penetrating, or more sympathetic. It is vain to hope that they will be mellowed or otherwise improved with age or use.

For it is a common experience that piano-fortes differ greatly in the ability to retain their good qualities, even though subjected to the same conditions. It is also noteworthy that, although many instruments may be made precisely similar, and by the same workmen at the same season of the year, all other known things being also equal, they will differ in their characteristics, as children of the same family mysteriously differ from one another, although retaining many marked points of resemblance. It should, therefore, not cause surprise that among the 30,000 piano-fortes annually produced in the States some will be found so admirably balanced, so happily constituted, and adapted to endure great "wear and tear," as to survive mutilation, railway-accidents, extremes of heat and cold, dampness and dryness, and yet remain surprisingly vigorous and strong. Engineers and others acquainted with the conduct of iron—in suspension-bridges, for instance—which does not uniformly granulate, will not be surprised to learn that three strings struck uniformly with the same hammer may break at widely different periods, after losing their tenacity from the insidious nature of vibrations, and then from thermal changes rather than blows. But here we are not merely speaking of the strings, but of the piano-forte in its entirety—as consisting of a great number of mutually-depending parts, coöperating to a common end and the harmonious working of all.

To trace the gradual development of the piano-forte, from all its various archetypes, would occupy too much space. It is sufficient here to point out that virginals, spinets, clavichords, harpsichords, and various new forms of old types of similar instruments, were found incapable of further improvement. In the "struggle for existence" they failed to compete with the piano-forte, which, although at first far inferior, has finally survived them all. During the past fifty years, modern science has materially aided in enlarging its powers, especially in America; and it now claims our attention as the ultimate result of a long series of modifications superimposed on modifications which have led to what Mr. Herbert Spencer might designate as "an immense increase in the harmony between the organism and its environment."

European piano-fortes introduced by the early settlers here soon became useless. The dry land-winds of the interior, the moist sea breezes of the coasts, the violent and sudden thermal changes, could not be endured. A new species had to be produced, for this one failed to become acclimated. The problem to be solved in those days was by no means an easy one. It was as difficult to improve upon the then existing piano-forte as it is to increase the capabilities of those we possess now. But the indomitable perseverance of sturdy souls