The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1840-12-15 00:00:00

THE ROCK HARMONICON

We were yesterday favoured with a sight and hearing of a
most extraordinary musical instrument, bearing the above
title. It is to be seen at No. 15, Bold-street ; and we most

coruiany recommena our reaners to pay Mr. Richardson,
the inventor, a visit. Several eminent musical men in Li-
verpool have already heard it, and all declare it to be the
most singular invention they have ever met with, not only
from the novelty and singularity of its construction, but also
for the strange and wild quality of its tones. The following
able description, from the Cumberland Pacquet, will give
the reader an idea of it :

" The history of the invention of this instrument is interest-
ing : it shows how much may be effected by a combination of
ingenuity, industry perseverance, and skill. Mr. Richardson,
the inventor, is a plain, honest, industrious, unassuming
country man, not refined by education, but possessed f
musical talent, and a considerable share of discrimination
and judgment. He is a mason by trade, a native of Crosth-
waite, near the town of Keswick, where his wife, and part
of his family still reside. Mr. Richardson was in the daily
habit of working at the rocks among the mountains, and in
pursuing his avocations experience taught him that almost
every variety of sound might be extracted from the rude
materials which he hourly met with in the course of his
lab.iurs. Being convinced that even the fragments of rocks,
uncouth as they seemed, might be collected and so judiciously
arranged as to form a musical instrument of surpassing
power and sweetness, Mr. Richardson was induced to com-
mence those labours which bid fair to hand his name down
to posterity.

In the year 1827, the inventor of the Rock Harmonicon
was employed in building a house at Thornthwaite, and
afterwards at Braithwaite, in the neighbourhood of Keswick,
and he then, for the first time, began to collect the stones of
which the Rock Harmonicon was intended to be composed.
The stones which he first collected, however, did not answer
his purpose, and thus, at the very commencement of his
undertaking a large portion of time and labour was necessarily
lost. This would have almost been sufficient to have dispirited
an ordinary mind ; but it only served to increase Mr. Richard-
son's efforts, and to convince him that with industry and
perseverance success yet laid within his reach. Having di
covered that the stones best calculated for his purpose
only to be met with amongst the rocks on the breast of the
mighty Skiddaw, he began to explore the mountain -
of the musical treasures which it contained-

The inventor

bore these stones from the mountain to a considerable dis-
tance home upon his back; he had afterwards to reduce many
of them, to shape them, and to try their varied tones, before
he could pronounce a favourable opinion on their merits.
This was a work of immense labour and time, and required
much determination, industry, labour, and perseverance for
its accomplishment, and after many hard day's labour in the
mountains, Mr. Richardson denied himself the repose which
exhausted nature required, and spent whole nights, after his
family had retired to rest, in hammering the rude materials
of which the instrument is composed, and in selecting and
arranging them, ere he brought to its present state the sweet-
toned instrument which cost him thirteen years of unwearied
labour and perseverance, under circumstances such as few
minds, not possessed of uncommon fortitude, could have
surmounted.
" In the execution of his arduous task the artist (for he well

deserves the name) experienced many difficulties of a private
and domestic nature—he had a family of eight children de
pendant upon his daily labour for support ; but what can
oppose the progress of ingenuity and perseverance, united in
the accomplishment of a favourite object? Mr. Richardson,
amid every obstacle, kept steady to his purpose, and in the
course of time he produced the rude but surprising instru-
ment, which has gratified and won the admiration of all who
have listened to its astonishing powers, and certain we are,
that the more it becomes known the more generally will it
become admired. Mr. Richardson's modesty would not
allow him to flatter himself that his labours and ingenuity
had produced an object worthy of public notice, and the in-
strument, as far as his views went, was doomed to obscurity.
Having got a frame made and the fragments of rock arranged
in musical order, and to his own taste, the inventor set
about teaching his sons to perform upon it, which they do
with small wooden mallets, with great taste, and with scien-
tific skill and dexterity.

" After having bestowed upon the Harmonicon thirteen
years of labour and attention, Mr. Richardson began to allow
his neighbours, and others who chose to favour him with a
call, to inspect the instrument, and to l'sten to its musical
powers. No scientific person—no musician or any person
of taste or judgment, whose opinion was at all calculated to
enhance the object of his labours in his estimation, however,
had yet pronounced any flattering encomium upon Mr.
Richardson's handiwork, and the sole use of the Rock liar-
monicon was so far merely to teach his sons the performance
of music, and to sweeten the hours of relaxation from severe
labour by listening to its enchanting and animating tones.
At length, however, the Harmonicon began to acquire some-
thing like local fame, and visitors, more numerous and more
distinguished, found their way to Mr. Richardson's abode.
" The softest notes of the " lacivious lute," the sweetest
of the piano, the shrillest sounds of the " car-piercing
and the loudest and most sonorous peals of the organ,

can be seat forth wan a
ravishing sensations, and fills the mina on
beholder with delight, astonishment, and wonder. It ex-
tends to a compass of nearly six octaves, accompanied with
all the additional semitones. Thd Rock Harmonican is in
fact an orchestra of itself ; the softest or the loudest tones of
any instrument may be effectually excelled, or imitated with
extraordinary resemblance.
" The invention of this wonderful instrument forms a new
era in the annals of harmony, and though it has been ushered
in to public notice in a rude and unpolished form, and conse-
quently possesses little that can attract the eye, its delightful
tones make ample compensation to the ear, The success of
the invention, however, is complete ; Mr. Rischardson has
established a claim to merit beyond dispute ; and though
the instrument may in future undergo much improvement,
both with respect to its appearance and its musical capabili-
ties, the musical world is indebted to the inventor for a most
novel and surprising instrument, possessed of rich, sweet,
and animating tones, and of almost unrivalled power."

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