 |
"When a cork is drawn from a bottle you hear a quick,
explosive report, ,,,. With a sufficient number of properly tuned bottles
a skillful performer could, by merely withdrawing the corks, easily evoke
a simple melody that every one would recognize... Koenig has devised an
interesting piece of apparatus in which sounds are elicited in the manner
thus illustrated. Here, instead of bottles, we have four brass tubes attached
to the same base and furnished with accurately fitted pistons. When these
are withdrawn in succession, you hear the notes ... consistuting the perfect
major chord." From J. A. Zahm, Sound and Music, second edition (McClurg,
Chicago, 1900), pg 36.
This apparatus is at the National Museum of American History at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C. It is catalogue number 2 in the 1889 Koenig catalogue, and is listed as "Four tubes giving the major chord when their pistons are withdrawn in succession... 35 francs." |
| This set of four resonant tubes by Koenig is in the Garland
Collection of Classic Physics Apparatus at Vanderbilt University in Nashville,
Tennessee.
Another example is at St.
Patrick's College in Maynooth, County Kildare, Ireland.
|
|