Page:The story of the flute (IA storyofflute1914fitz).djvu/285

 by Signor Giorgi of Florence. His flute has no keys whatever (though they can be added to it), and has a mouthpiece fitted with a mouth-hole like the ordinary flute, but placed crosswise across the end of the tube.

Heckel, of Biebrich, has recently invented a small metal cap to be attached to the open end of the tube; this, he claims, increases the purity and beauty of the tone. Mollenhauer, another German maker, has produced a curious modification of the mouth-hole, which resembles that on the ancient flute found by Newton at Halicarnassus (see p. 23, ante).

D'Israeli in his Curiosities of Literature, and Hoffmann in his Serapion Brethren, both make allusions to an automaton flute-player constructed by Jacques Vaucauson, which was exhibited in Paris in 1738 and is thus described in D'Alembert's Encyclopédie Methodique: "A gigantic mechanical flute-player stood on a pedestal in which some of the works were contained, and not only blew into the flute, but with its lips increased and diminished