| If you don't have a wind chest, the only way to demonstrate
the action of an organ pipe is to apply its lower end to your lips and
blow. This has two problems: once a pipe gets to be about 75 cm long, human
lungs have difficulty supplying the air with sufficient volume and pressure,
and it is hard to discuss the action of the organ pipe when you are blowing
it.
Wind chests have sliders, similar to those used in organs, to open and close the air to the individual pipes. This one is in the museum of St. Patrick's College in Maynooth, County Kildare, Ireland. It was sold by Yeates and Son of Dublin ca. 1875, and was made by Rudoph Koenig of Paris. Mounted on the wind chest are a siren
and an organ pipe with a manometric
flame.
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The wind chest below is by Leppin and Mascke of Berlin, and is in storage at Cornell University. The devices across the top are holders for various pipes. Cornell also has a Koenig wind chest identical to the one above.
