Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 40.djvu/665

 firms. But in the abstract the organs produced by the leading makers approximate in most respects, all aiming after the same artistic results. The most elaborate and costly organs, however, come from the workshops of Mason & Hamlin, who deserve special recognition for their untiring efforts to elevate the instrument in artistic character and status. The present head of the firm, Mr. Edward Mason, is a grandson of Dr. Lowell Mason, and a native of Boston, where he was born in 1858. The founders of the business have all passed away.

There are many other excellent organ-makers in the United States, some of whom are better known in Europe than in this country, strange as it may seem. The number of organs exported annually is very large, and of these the West contributes a goodly share.

The manufacture of reeds, keys, and many other parts of the instrument became specialized as in the case of the piano, but not to such an ex tent The Munroe Reed Company was the most important of these specialists, the others being largely associated with the kindred industry of piano-making.

Improvement in the organ since 1850 has been expressed in the development of tone and case structure, as remarked, while the chief patents taken out have been for mechanical contrivances to cheapen production. Modern parlor organs represent considerable intelligence and accumulated effort in their scope and character, many of the examples produced coming close to the smaller