The Saint Paul globe., 1904-05-15
LARGEST ORGAN IS
CALLED UNCANNY
Men Employed in Moving Giant
instrument Handle Pipes
With Superstition.

LOS ANGELES, Cal. May 14.-The
great organ for Convention hall has
been shipped to St. Louis for the ex-
position. Yards of statistical informa-
tlon telling why this is the largest or
gan In the world have been printed,
but there are some interesting facts
about the giant instrument, which cost
$4,000, and weighs 25O,OOO pounds.
The organ is forty-two feet higher
than the top of the console, or key
desk.
The largest metal pipe is thirty sew
en- feet six inches long, and weighs $40
pounds The smallest is three-quar-
ters of an inch long, three-s -sixteenths
OF an inch in diameter, and weighs less
than half an ounce.
The pipes contains 10000 pounds of
zinc and 5000 pounds of soft metal
The largest wood pipe is thirty-tw
feet long, and weighs 1900 pounds The
wood pipes are of California sugar
pine, and contain $4,000 feet of that
material
There are 10,O59 pipes in the organ.
The building frame contains 1000 feet
of lumber. The chests of the organ
contain 10000 feet of lumber, the wood
pipes and fittings 10000 and the re-
mainder 24,500 feet.
Some of the pipes are large enough
TO contain two men lying side by side.
The organ contains 140 music stops
and ninety-nine mechanical stops. One
thousand three hundred magnets are
used in the organ.
One thousand one hundred and ff-
teen miles of wire were used in it's con-
struction.
The organ contains five bellows, and
is run by an electric motor of twenty
horse power.
h. L.
ical movements. 1t is capable of pro-
ducing 17,179,S69, 1873 distinct tonal
combination, controlled entirely by an
electrical switchboard.
The organ consists practically of six
organs. respectively the great organ,
swell organ, choir organ, solo organ,
echo organ and pedal organ.
May Be the Undoing of Organists.
Arthur Scott Brook, organist, states
with emphasis that the organ will un-
make more regulations than 1T will
make Mr.. Brook was the first to play
the organ in its trial days, and has
since spent much time in careful study
of its construction and mechanism. Mr..
Brook believes that Organists will find
themselves helpless before the monster
unless they take a course of instruc-
tion.
Mr.. Brook is granted leave t< alb
Stanford university to exhibit the or
gan in St. Louis.
The wonderful size of the or
gan is simply uncanny. In the
Voicing room of the factory
where the pipes came to gain
speech the men employed were almost
superstitiously respectful in handling
them. An organ pipe as everybody
knows, contains an opening at one side
near the top-a sort of straight in
cision into the round column which
leaves an open Slit The edge of this
inserted piece of metal is called the
Hnguid. 1t is practically the mouth
piece, and is sent to the voicing room
for putting into place what men call
teeth" and "tongue"-fine work which
gives the proper note to each pipe. The
voicer is an expert, and great skill
is required in the final adjustment of
the tiny mechanism of the linguid of
each pipe The measurements are made
with mathematical precision, and the
pipes are tested again and again by an
organ equipment. From dull sounding
lengths of pipe they are turned into
finely adjusted instruments, producing
each perfect note.
Once given utterance these pipes be-
come human to the wOrkmen and are
called by name.
The pipes are placed on the wind chest,
and, operated by keys on the console,
are played upon as by human emotions.
The great lungs heave, and the pipes
give voice to liquid notes.
The organ has SO many new features,
different from those built heretofore,
that the men who built 1t look upon
"the big 'un" as respectfully as If they
were in the presence of the president Of
the United States.
The man who designed this monster
organ is w. B. Fle1ning, who is a small
hot " IN 1ir1cr 4c 10
lighted to talk on the subject of his
greatest creation, but bushes like a
girl when given a word of praise. To
him each organ which he designs is a
child of his imagination, too sacred
for notoriety.