The Penn's Grove record., 1883-11-10

"Behold the footprints OF the infanc
Of cur artI" said a musician sanding Il
front OF a glass case in the museum
natural history. He pointed to th
Whistles aud rattles in he collection {
articles presented to the museum b
Herber r. Bishop. The collection cam
from the shores of British Columbus
and the smallest portion Of it was CON
posei of the objects that arrested tn
attention of the musician. Only a seor
or more of big and little whistles, som
of bone, some of wood, one revised an,
improved by the author by the addition
of a tau powder canister and a bell. 4
few showed two whistles bound to
gether.
"a Yankee boy, with a good jack
knife and a sappy willow twig woult
iscount the collection in Is minutes,
said n matter. Of fact reporter.
80 he might, so far as the musica
product of his work would be con
cerned," assented the musician, "bui
his whistles, though as dulcettoned as
the voice Of Phllomela, would not have
the significance of the smallest of those
rude instruments. Would you hear
what they speak to me? Would you
see how in those whistles, made by
saYages, lie the germs of the organ that
thunders and pleads and walls and sings
in chorus of seraphs' voices III Trinity
church? Would you transport your
self back in time through ages and see
instruments like those IN the hands of
the people who afterwards chanted
hymns to Isis and Osiris, sang the songs
of the Vedas, made music with the
sound of the ~'cornet, flute, harp, sack
but, psaltery and dulclmer, raised
psalms of thanksgiving in the temple at
Jerusalem, and listened 70 the entrsnced
lips of Homer? Follow me-in your
mind"
These little bone whistles are among
the earliest of musical instruments;
they follow hard on the heels of clap.
pers AID rude drums. and they ante
date the whole tribe of stringed instru-
ments. They were known III the stone
age and have been dug up with relics OF
that terrific man who had to contest
the occupancy OF middle Europe with
the rhlnoceros, the mammoth ard the
caye-ion. When they were first made
they were made with flint knives. That's
one proof Of their antiquity; another is
furnished by phllology ond mythology.
The Egyptians called the single flute
blown at the end sebi, and sebl Is the
the name of the leg-bone; the Latins
called it tibia, and hbia is the name OF
the leg-bone. The Greeks told the fact
more POLITICALLY. According to n of
their legends Pallas Athene made the
first flute, forming it out of the leg-bone
of a deer. IN order to mimic the kissing
sound made by the snakes on the heads
of Sthemo and Euryale, the sisters of
Medusa, when they raised a cry OF
lamentation over her death.
From bone whistles 10 whistles made
of reeds the step was not greet In me-
cbanics, but told Of an advance IN
musical taste. The savage was no
longer conhnIng 1t to the hunt; may
hap he was using it to charm his female
companion. He bonnd two together as
those two are bound together. Long
years afterwsfd the Hebrews called the
double dute ~misbrokilha; the Greeks,
who had many varieties of it, of which
they made sci ylceabie objects IN their
art decorations, called II diaulos, the
single flute or pipe being autos. Ii the
tubes were alike the Romans called the
double flute tib,s psres; if they were
different. tbl0 impares. They, too,
put them on cases, and like the Greeks,
put a bandage around the cheeks OF the
beautiful women who played them. it is
Thought to assist the blowing or to con-
eeal the g~rinanees which would have
PANIED the eyes of an antique esthete.
Now in this point of tine evolution
of the flute down to the discovery OF
the essential principle of the peneu-
matte organ there are practically but
two steps. One OF these steps these
Hardah Indians have taken, for / have
st en- the evidence in the collection OF
objects from related tribes sent by Rev.
Sheldon jackson to Princeton. 1t is the
invention OF the syrinx. or Paudean
pipes, and the addition Of the artificial
air reservoir. You see the first union
in the bsgpipes. The Assyrians had
them, the Hebrews. Greeks and Ro-
mans had them, and they were esteemed
right regal instruments. 1t was not the
fiddle, but the tibla utrlcularis that Nero
played on when Rome was burning.
With the syrinx we reach classical
ground that you walked over at school.
Two names suggest the legend relating
its orlgn. Virgil and Ovid have
PAN primus calamos cera conlungere
plures lnstituit. repeated the reporter
not long from school.
Right you are; and now recall from
the MetaInorphoses the episode of the
love-sick Pan, whose uncouth and shag-
gy breast heaved with signs for Syrinx,
one of the loyeliest nymphs OF Arcadia.
She was timld and fed from his adyanc-
es. He pursued, rolling about like the
awkward hulk he was, and believing
his prOtestations in a voice like the bull
Of Basham. Down 10 the edge OF a
brook lay the pslh Of flight, and Pans
greedy arms were all but around the
flushed and huttering Syrnx when she
murmured a prayer to a gracious god
and was changed into a clump OF reeds.
Poor, inconstant Panl She, he doubt
less though, would be his only love.
He cut seven tubes from the newborn
reeds, joined them with wax and gave
his disappointment utterance through
breathing on the syrinx.
''Did he afterward o the other coy
nymphs of Arcadia with this tuneful
relic of hls lost love? I'm afraid he
did"
Arizona Rain storms.