Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 40.djvu/664

644 bent, a better quality of tone could be produced. This discovery was made in 1848. Subsequent experiments yielded remarkable results, and a new instrument was practically introduced. Meanwhile the discovery of the method of reed structure referred to has been a subject of dispute for years, the late Mr. Riley Burdette and others claiming to have anticipated Hamlin. As neither took out a patent, I can only give the version most generally accepted. In 1847 the two leading American firms devoted to the melodeon were Prince & Co. and Carhart & Needham, both located in Buffalo, N. Y. Hamlin was a clever workman and tuner in the employ of Prince & Co., to whose benefit he turned his discovery up to 1854, when he joined the celebrated Dr. Lowell Mason and founded the eminent Boston firm yet bearing their names. Other makers were not slow to copy the invention, and it became a commonly accepted principle in the melodeon within a few years.

The use of these instruments became wide-spread from 1850 upward, many patented improvements being brought forward in the interval in the acoustic and other departments. Of these, Jeremiah Carhart's invention of the exhaust or suction bellows in 1846 was the most significant. Harmoniums, so called, were also produced in this country similar to those of Alexandre, of Paris, but they varied little from seraphines and melodeons except in matters of detail. Carhart's bellows became generally adopted subsequently, and at this period is used exclusively in American organs. The old method of playing air upon the reeds yet obtains in Europe, owing to the claim that it secures more prompt speech, while the opposite method is employed in this country.

Toward 1861 the first instruments resembling the modern parlor-organ appeared. The case became individualized, new tone effects were added, two or more sets of reeds employed, and the name of "organ" applied formally. Mason & Hamlin first used the term in instruments of that improved order in 1861 which they named "organ harmoniums," to distinguish them from melodeons and harmoniums. In a few years it became "organs." Prince & Co., Carhart & Needham, and other makers contributed to the later developments in special directions, but to the firm of Mason & Hamlin is conceded the claim that they were the first to introduce the parlor organ in the year designated.

The organ business grew so rapidly that a great many new firms entered the field before 1870, some of them yet existing. Among the older houses yet devoted to this industry are Clough & Warren, of Detroit, and Estey & Co., of Brattleboro, Vt., both being founded about 1850. In the organs of both of these firms technical and acoustic ideas of a special nature are to be seen. This must also be said of instruments produced by more modern