A NEW METHOD OF PRODUCING CONTINUED TONES UPON AN INSTRU- MENT, BY ME, THE SAID ADAM WALKER, CALLED A CELESTINA, A NEW PIECE OF MECHANISM
Year: 1772

page_text: TO ALL TO WHOM THESE PRESENTS SHALL COME, I, ADAM
WALKER, of Manchester, in the County Palatine of Lancaster, Lecturer on
Natural Philosophy, send greeting.
WHEREAS His most Excellent Majesty King George the Third did, by
His Letters Patent, bearing date at Westminster, the Twenty-ninth day of
August, in the twelfth year of His reign, give and grant unto me, the said
Adam Walker, His special licence that I, the said Adam Walker, during
the term of years therein expressed, should and lawfully might use, exercise,
and vend, within England, Wales, and Town of Berwick-upon-Tweed, my
Invention of "A NEW METHOD OF PRODUCING CONTINUED TONES UPON AN INSTRU-
MENT, BY ME, THE SAID ADAM WALKER, CALLED A CELESTINA, A NEW PIECE OF
MECHANISM;" in which said recited Letters Patent there is contained a proviso
obliging me, the said Adam Walker, within four kalender months after the
date of the said recited Letters Patent, to cause a particular description of the
nature of the said Invention, and in what manner the same is to be performed,
by an instrument under my hand and seal, to be inrolled in His Majesty's High

page_text: Court of Chancery, as in and by the same, relation being thereunto bad, will
more fully and at large appear.
NOW KNOW YE, that in compliance with the said proviso, I, the said
Adam Walker, do hereby declare that my said Invention is described in
manner following (that is to say):
The Celestina is a keyed instrument, shaped like an harpsichord, with one,
two, or more wire or catgut strings to a note. The tone is produced from
those strings by one or more threads or bands of silk, flax, wire, gut, hair,
leather (and many other mineral, animal, and vegitable substances), and the
said threads or bands are kept circulating above or under the strings by a
weight, spring, or traddle, and being pressed when in this motion against the
strings by means of the keys, or the strings being pulled by means of the keys
against the said thread or threads, thereby said thread or threads produce tones
from the strings as a bow does from a violin. The tones so produced are con-
tinued as long as the fingers press the keys, as in an organ, and are made loud
or soft by that pressure being greater or less. This effect is also occasionally
produced by springs or weights. The Celestina, as described above, is also made
to be played by a pricked barrel, as the hand or barrel organ, and is strung
sometimes within and sometimes without the body of the instrument. The
said Invention is also capable of being added to any harpsichord, without
injuring the instrument or interfering with its stops, and the principal profits
the Patentee expects from the said Invention is from the facility with which it
can be added to any harpsichord. The Celestina is generally shaped like a
harpsichord, but is made of any shape or size, from a portable instrument to
the size of the largest harpsichord.
In witness whereof, I, the said Adam Walker, have hereunto set my
hand and seal, this Nineteenth day of December, in the thirteenth
year of the reign of our Sovereign Lord George the Third, by the
grace of God of Great Britain, France, and Ireland King, Defender
of the Faith, and so forth, and in the year of our Lord One thousand
seven hundred and seventy-two.

page_text: AND BE IT REMBRED, that on the Nineteenth day of December, in
the year of our Lord 1772, the aforesaid Adam Walker came before our
said Lord the King in His Chancery, and acknowledged the Specification
aforesaid, and all and every thing therein contained and specified, in form
above written. And also the Specification aforesaid was stampt according
to the tenor of the Statute made in the sixth year of the reign of the late
King and Queen William and Mary of England, and so forth.
Inrolled the Twenty-second day of December, in the year of our Lord
One thousand seven hundred and seventy-two.