Scan 32
Researches into the early history of the violin family, 1883
10 lines. Read by computer on 3 September 2026. Printed page 22. See the scan on archive.org.
1because the black hair is generally thicker and rougher than the white, and, therefore, produces a greater friction. It is also used for our double-bass bow, while for the delicate treatment of the violin white hair is preferred.
3It is remarkable that, while the strings of the instruments made in different parts of the world are of every possible substance (such as gut of the sheep, goat, cat, calf, camel, silk, metal, hair, the runners of creeping plants, the fibrous bark of trees, the tendons of animals, &c.), the substance of the bow is apparently always the same. Possibly the hair of the bows of some foreign nations may be from other animals than the horse, but it certainly appears to be horse-hair.
5The shape of the bow of the German fiddle assigned to the ninth century, which is depicted in Gerbert's "De Cantu et Musica Sacra," rather resembles that of our old-fashioned double-bass bow. However, it appears doubtful whether the manuscript from which the illustration has been copied is really so old as is generally supposed. A bow depicted in Notker's Psalm-book, of the tenth century, is more curved. The same is the case with an Anglo-Saxon bow of the eleventh century, depicted in a manuscript which is in the British Museum.
7In fact, our fiddle-bow has been brought only at a comparatively recent period to the degree of perfection which it now exhibits. The screw and button, by means of which the tension of the hair can be regulated, are said to have been first adopted in the beginning of the eighteenth century by Tourte, in Paris, the father of the celebrated violin-bow maker, François Tourte.
9Fig. 6.—Bow of the Kokiou; Japan.
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