Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 40.djvu/823

Rh which, however, hardly compensates for defectiveness in phrasing and other drawbacks.

Up to about 1840 the keyed or "Kent bugle" held the place now occupied by the cornet, although in being only since 1807. That now obsolete instrument was the familiar duty or field bugle, to which keys had been added so as to allow the production of intermediate tones in addition to the harmonics indicated.

Halliday, an Irish gentleman, who invented that instrument, discovered by accident that, by boring holes in an old field bugle, extra tones could be produced. Ellard, a musical instrument maker of Dublin, made him a model after some experiments, and the latter having added further improvements, it was submitted to the Duke of Kent, who introduced it into his band, whereupon it took the name of the "Kent bugle."

When the allied armies entered Paris after Waterloo, the Grand Duke Constantine of Russia heard the bugle for the first time. Through Distin—father of the modern family of that name—then soloist in the Coldstream Guards band, he secured a copy, and on returning to Russia had it adopted in all the imperial bands. It had a short existence, however, for within a few years the cornopean—as the cornet was at first named—succeeded it. This was not merely an incidental step beyond the Kent bugle, for it resulted in the production of a complete family of brass instruments within a few years, namely sax-horns, besides influencing the French horn, trombone, and trumpet, and art generally. It appeared first in Russia, but its invention was claimed by the elder Sax, and by a Mr. Adams, an American. The latter had no patent and never proved his right to the claim advanced, while the representations of Sax stand equally discredited. The real author is yet unknown. The chief features of originality in the cornopean or cornet over the keyed bugle consist in the use of three pistons, which, on being pressed singly, or in combination, shut off, or add, certain lengths of tubing, so as to raise or lower the pitch, these valves being perforated to assist that end.

Antoine Sax, of Paris—the greatest inventor of the age in that field—in addition to his feats in relation to the saxophone, took