Aeolian harp

“ In later times the Æolian harp has been improved by Messrs. Frost and Kastner, whose apparatus is represented in Fig. 2. It consists of a rectangular box with two sounding boards, each provided with eight catgut strings. In order to limit the current of air and to bring it with more force against the strings, two wings are adapted near the thin surfaces opposed to the wind, so that the current may reach each group of cords on passing through the narrow aperture between the obliquely inclined wing and the body of the instrument. ”

“ All pianists and manufacturers of the instrument have long felt that artistic skill and mechanical ingenuity had vainly essayed to banish that woodiness of sound, and want of sustained vibration, that attended the emission of its tone. The Aeolian Attachment not only removes the evils that are inherent in the piano-forte, but imparts to it a distinctive vibratory and sustaining power, combining the rich volume and swell of the organ with the passionate intensity and pathetic tenderness elicited from an Amati, or a Straduarius, by a gifted violinist. ”

“ While Mars doth take the Aonian harp to play?
Great are thy kingdoms, over-strong and large,
Ambitious imp, why seek'st thou further charge?
Are all things thine? the Muses' Tempe thine?
Then scarce can Phœbus say, "This harp is mine." ”

“ She is seated, holding the instrument in her lap. The little tuning-pegs, which in number are not in accordance with the strings, are placed on the sound-board at the upper part of the frame, exactly as on the Assyrian harp. If we have here the Greek harp, it was more likely an importation from Asia than from Egypt. In short, as far as can be ascertained, the most complete of the Greek instruments appear to be of Asiatic origin. Especially from the nations who inhabited Asia Minor the Greeks are stated to have adopted several of the most popular. ”

“ Several specimens have been discovered in tombs preserved in a more or less perfect condition.
The Egyptians possessed various kinds of harps, some of which were elegantly shaped and tastefully ornamented. The largest were about six and a half feet high; and the small ones frequently had some sort of stand which enabled the performer to play upon the instrument while standing. The name of the harp was buni. Its frame had no front pillar; the tension of the strings therefore cannot have been anything like so strong as on our present harp. ”

“ If, on the other hand, the Aether is assumed to be continuous and non-atomic, it must be seen how exceedingly difficult it is to account for the elasticity of the Aether, as it seems absolutely impossible for a medium which is continuous, and non-atomic, to be able to transmit the waves of light with a finite velocity. ”

“ If it is true that the earth exerts an attractive influence upon the surrounding Aether by means of which it is held in its place relatively to the earth, then it is equally true that Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune also exert gravitating or attractive influences upon the surrounding Aether, in the same way that they do upon their own atmospheres. ”

“ Not only is there a decrease in density of the Aether, as the distance from the sun is increased, but there is also a decrease in the velocity of the moving Aether, with the result that the Aether at the distance of Mercury, possesses a greater angular velocity than at the distance of Venus.
It may be at once asked, How do we know that? Well, Philosophy alone can give us the key, and Philosophy tells us to base our theories and hypotheses on experience and experiment. Now what does experiment and experience teach us as to the effect of a body revolving in any medium upon that medium? ”

“ The aerolites that reach the surface are not always exploded into very small fragments, but every now and then quite large masses remain intact. Most of these are stony; some have bits of iron scattered through them; others are almost pure iron, or with a little nickel alloy, or have pockets in them laden with stone. ”

“ The diameter of the moon is, however, only 2160 miles, so that the rotating Aether currents would practically form an ocean in which the moon would swim, and one constant level on which it revolves in space. Wherever the earth was carried by the aetherial currents of the sun, there the aetherial currents of the earth would carry the moon, its mean distance by the conjoint working of the two co-equal forces having been permanently fixed. ”

“ We answer, the number of aerolites seen to fall in a country depends upon the number of its inhabitants. The ocean, deserts, and uninhabited portions of the earth's surface afford no instances of such phenomena, simply for the want of observers. In sparsely settled countries the fall of aerolites would not unfrequently escape observation; and as such bodies generally penetrate the earth to some depth, the chances of discovery, when the fall is not observed, must be exceedingly rare. ”

“ The harp is a very ancient instrument. It was played thousands of years ago in Egypt and Assyria. In fact it was the favorite instrument of the Egyptians and it was often magnificently ornamented. The Egyptian harp had no front pillar, and sometimes it looks in the hands of the player like a boat with a sail of strings. ”

“ In general, their penetration into the soil upon which they fall does not at all correspond to the great velocity with which they move in the atmosphere. The fragmentary structures of the aerolites, their identity of substance with that of our globe, their great resemblance to the volcanic minerals of the Earth, and the fractures and faults which some of them exhibit, do not correspond at all with the idea that they are cometary particles fallen on the Earth. ”

“ Cultured races and primitive peoples alike played the harp. The Greeks had three-cornered harps and the Romans had harps with a curved frame, pegs, and sound-box. The famous lyre was a kind of harp. The ancient Irish harp, called cruit, and also crwth, which in time became a sort of fiddle-harp and was played with a bow, seems to have been an ancestor of the violin. As early as 200 B.C. the Irish children were taught that “the spirit of song dwelt among the trembling strings of the cruit.” ”

“ Thus the intensity of the aetherial pressure owing to the decreased distance will be greatly increased, and the effect of the increased pressure of the Aether upon the planet will be to push it away from the sun, so that the two forces may be equalized, and its mean distance, which is definitely fixed, be maintained as far as possible. ”

“ We have to remember, from Art. 60, that wherever there is motion of any kind or sort, there we have a capacity to do work, and that the aetherial motion which we term heat is no exception to this rule. We are now no longer dealing with a frictionless medium, but with a medium which possesses weight, because it is gravitative, and consequently possesses inertia also. So that whenever the Aether is set in motion by flame or heat, its motion would be transmitted by waves of some kind to the iron ball. ”

“ The Anglo-saxons frequently accompanied their vocal effusions with a harp, more or less triangular in shape,—an instrument which may be considered rather as constituting the transition of the lyre into the harp. The representation of king David playing the harp is from an Anglo-saxon manuscript of the beginning of the eleventh century, in the British museum. The harp was especially popular in central and northern Europe, and was the favourite instrument of the German and Celtic bards and of the Scandinavian skalds. ”

“ Therefore, the only solution is, that the rotating atmosphere imparts some of its motion to the aetherial atmosphere, which in its turn rotates, and that that rotation is governed by exactly the same conditions as govern the relation that exists between the earth and the atmosphere. Therefore the Aether in space associated with each planet or satellite or sun or star, rotates with the rotating body, and that rotation imparts to the Aether a greater bulging out in the equatorial regions of the aetherial atmosphere than in any other part thereof. ”

“ AEOLIS (AEOLIA) , an ancient district of Asia Minor, colonized at a very early date by Aeolian Greeks. The name was applied to the coast from the river Hermus to the promontory of Lecture, i.o. between Ionia to S. and Troas to N. The Aeolians founded twelve cities on the mainland, including Cyme, and numerous towns in Mytilene: they were said also to have settled in the Troad and even within the Hellespont.
AEOLUS, in Greek mythology, according to Homer the son of Hippotes, god and father of the winds, and ruler of the island of Aeolia. ”

“ But Aea abides unshaken even now and the sons of those men whom that king settled to dwell in Aea. They preserve the writings of their fathers, graven on pillars, whereon are marked all the ways and the limits of sea and land as ye journey on all sides round. There is a river, the uttermost horn of Ocean, broad and exceeding deep, that a merchant ship may traverse; they call it Ister and have marked it far off; and for a while it cleaves the boundless tilth alone in one stream; for beyond the blasts of the north wind, far off in the Rhipaean mountains, its springs burst forth with a roar. ”

“ If a stick of wood, after being covered over night in the hot ashes, so as to become in part or wholly charred, be taken out in the morning, and waved back and forth in the air, every one has noticed that it will send forth sparks by hundreds and thousands. Now the more modern theory as to these aerolites, or falling-stars, is, that they are thrown off from small, opaque, planetary bodies, revolving in space, which when they come within the atmosphere of the earth, are heated from their rapid motion through it, and throw off small heated portions, like the sparks from the waving brand. ”

“ That the Aether does grow denser and denser nearer to a body we have already seen in Art. 46, and now we learn that a body, when under the influence of the centrifugal force only, would pass from the denser parts of a medium to the rarer parts, as suggested by Newton. We will now suppose that Mercury has been repelled, by the pressure due to the aetherial waves generated by the sun, to the distance of Neptune, a distance of 2,780,000,000 miles; and that at this point the centrifugal force is cancelled, and in its place is put the centripetal force of Gravitation. ”

“ The harp-lute owes the first part of its name to the characteristic mechanism for shortening the effective length of the strings; its second name—dital harp—emphasizes the nature of the stops, which are worked by the thumb in contradistinction to the pedals of the harp worked by the feet. It consists of a pear-shaped body, to which is added a curved neck supported on a front pillar or arm springing from the body, and therefore reminiscent of the harp. ”

“ But the stony aerolites, containing less iron, conducting heat badly, preserve in their interior the temperature of the locality from which they fall; their surface only is heated, and generally fused. When the stones are large, the excessive cold of their interior portion, which must be nearly that of interplanetary space, is remarked; but when small, they remain hot for some time."—Dr. ”

“ Thus in the light of the centrifugal motion, combined with the fact that Aether is gravitative, by which each body possesses an aetherial atmosphere and electrical equivalent proportionate to its mass, it can be demonstrated within a reasonable limit how it is that such planets as Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, possessing aetherial atmospheres and electrical equivalents proportionate to their masses, revolve in orbits round the sun at much greater distances than Mercury, Venus, the Earth, or Mars. ”

“ With this philosophical view of the Aether, which is entirely in harmony with our first and second Rules of Philosophy, we shall be able to give a physical explanation of the Law of Gravitation, as we have now a physical medium existing in all atomic, solar, and stellar space, which can both accept motion, and transmit that motion to other bodies. In other words, we have a medium which can both push and pull. ”

“ What a very storm of energy and power must there be in this aetherial atmosphere which exists around the sun's huge form, and with what volume of power must the aetherial heat waves speed away from so great a generating source! Some idea as to their velocity of motion may be gained by the fact, that these aetherial heat waves traverse the distance of 92,000,000 miles between the sun and our earth in the short space of 8-1/2 minutes. ”

“ The chemical activity by which the burning is brought about arouses and excites the atoms of matter subject thereto, into an intensity of motion, thousands, it may be millions of times greater than can be produced by any other known means. Therefore it can be readily seen, that the Aether waves generated by this means will be greater and more abundant, both in their volume and intensity, than the Aether waves produced merely by a cold body. ”

“ Of the sixty or more elements now recognized by chemists, about twenty have been found in aerolites.
While aerolites contain no new elements, their appearance is quite peculiar; and the compounds found in them are so peculiar as to enable us by chemical analysis to distinguish an aerolite from any terrestrial substance.
Iron ores are very abundant in nature, but iron in the metallic state is exceedingly rare. Now, aerolites invariably contain metallic iron, sometimes from ninety to ninety-six per cent. ”