Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 50.djvu/577

Rh Mr. Gerhard recommends the isolation of the building' so far as practicable, fireproof construction, using brick and terra cotta in preference to stone and avoiding exposed ironwork, the use of incandescent electric lights, proper storing of scenery, removal of rubbish, etc. If a fire does start, the building should be so divided as to localize it. The stage should be separated from the auditorium by a fire wall. The proscenium opening should be fitted with a fire-resisting curtain, closing as nearly as possible hermetically. There should be as few other openings in this wall as possible, and all of them kept closed by fire doors. The safety of the spectators and stage people can be best provided for by having adequate exits. All other devices Mr. Gerhard ranks as subordinate. The exits, he says, should be arranged so as to widen as they approach the outside of the building. There should be no stinting of exits for the occupants of the galleries, who have often been suffocated in large numbers by the rising smoke and hot gases of combustion. Many other measures for preventing or restricting the damage done by fires are named by Mr. Gerhard, and he describes with considerable detail what he deems the best appliances for putting out theater fires before they have gained much headway. The volume is made up of three papers prepared for different occasions, hence there are some repetitions in it. This not very serious fault doubtless could have been wholly or largely removed by a moderate amount of editing. A list of books and magazine articles on theater construction and protection is appended. Every theatergoer should read the volume, so that he may know when he is in a safe house, and should never again allow the most seductive bill to tempt him into a death-trap.

It is a strong presumptive recommendation of Mr. Parry's Evolution of the Art of Music that it was nine years in preparation. The examination of the book reveals throughout evidences of the thorough study and careful work implied by that term of years, and of effort to go to the bottom of the subject. The author seems to have found a firm basis for his deductions, and expresses them clearly and distinctly, without any of the hazy uncertainty and vague indefiniteness that mark the majority of attempts to analyze music and make them far from satisfactory. The origin of music is found in natural or spontaneous vocal expressions of feeling and sensibility, such as are common to all sentient beings. Man has developed and extended them and formulated them according to his stage of culture, and the purpose in this book is to point out how and by what steps he has done this and brought musical expression to its present high condition. These utterances pass within the range of art when they take any definite form, just as speech begins when vague signals of sound give place to words. When these musical figures become definite enough to be remembered, scales are formed, or series of notes which stand in some recognizable relation to one another in respect of pitch. The connection of music, or vocal, with dancing or muscular expression of feeling gives rise to rhythm, and we have all the elements of the art. The scales, ancient and modern, and of various races, are described and analyzed. A step higher than the primitive fragments of tune and rhythm of savage music—the first stages of musical development—is folk music, in which an appearance of orderliness and