Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 40.djvu/499

 seen, and it has tempted me to engage one for Monticello. His strings are perpendicular, and he contrives within that height to give his strings the same length as in a grand piano-forte, and fixes the three unisons to the same screw. It scarcely gets out of tune at all, and then, for the most part, the three unisons are tuned at once."

One of these instruments is now in the possession of Broadwood & Sons, London. Hawkins was certainly the first to anticipate the modern upright, in its characteristics of portableness, but musically his instrument had no value, and the action principle originated by him was a complete failure. He afterward returned to London, where he achieved an honorable place in his profession. I am indebted to Mr. A. J. Hipkins, the celebrated English writer on musical instruments, and member of Broadwood & Sons, London, for facts given in this connection.

The future of the piano about the beginning of the century depended on the successful introduction of iron; for a point of development had been reached where wooden cases were found inadequate to withstand the tension imposed by heavier stringing and an increased key-board compass. Meanwhile the first notable attempt to introduce iron into the structure of the piano occurred in this country in 1800, when J. Isaac Hawkins, already spoken of, manufactured uprights with iron backs, on which the sounding-board was adjusted. Several rude attempts to employ iron were made subsequently in Europe, but without any degree of success, until Allen and Thoms, two practical workmen in the shop of Stodart in London, originated and patented a system of metal tube and plate bracing in 1820. This attempt was in itself very successful. It became the property of Stodart and proved a fortune to him, but, although an improvement on the old methods, it was far from being adequate to the demands of musical progress. Pleyel, of Paris, and Broadwood, of London, followed with more improvements of the same order, and with partial success, from the