Page:The story of the flute (IA storyofflute1914fitz).djvu/77

 on November 1st, 1832, and again on April 25th, 1833. The instrument was described in an article in Der Bazar of the last-named date, which was reprinted in The Harmonicon of August 1833. In May 1833 Böhm visited Paris and London, and again came to London in July 1834, where he remained for nearly a year, and appeared in public on several occasions, playing "on his newly-constructed flute." At first it does not appear to have been largely taken up in England (chiefly, no doubt, owing to the disinclination of established players to learn the new fingering), but in 1839 Ward began to manufacture it, and Cartewho claimed to have been the first prominent English professor to play it in publicCard, Signor Folz, and Clinton adopted it. It was noticed in the Leipsic Gazette Musicale in 1834, and was taken up by several German and French players of note. In 1838 the French Academy of Fine Arts investigated its merits (as improved by Coche and Buffet), and it was introduced into the Paris Conservatoire.

After 1832 Böhm, who himself says he never placed a high value on his inventions, for a time abandoned his efforts to improve the flute, and turned his attention to other subjects. He evidently possessed an inventive genius, and amongst other things he invented the overstringing of pianofortes, an improved method of smelting iron, and also of communicating rotary motion.

Having studied acoustics under Schafhäutl, Professor of Mathematics in the Bavarian University, he in 1847 set to work to improve the bore of the flute, and after three hundred experiments (chiefly with metal tubes)