Books › The Violin: A concise exposition of the general principles of construction.., 1871 › scan 41
Scan 41
The Violin: A concise exposition of the general principles of construction.., 1871
6 lines. Read by computer on 28 September 2026. No printed page number was found. See the scan on archive.org.
1It is all in vain for us to be mere copyists, for were we to gauge every thickness of a reputed perfect instrument with the exactitude of the micrometer, and make one of precisely the same measurements, the result would be but very mediocre in quality, and in no way to be compared with the original instrument; for as no two faces are fully alike, or two trees exact counterparts of one another, so no two pieces of wood are innately the same. Thus we must modify the thickness according to the quality of the wood, its resonant properties, &c.
3We again may ask ourselves, why is the wood of the back and belly cut so as to have the grain parallel, and perpendicular to its position on the instrument? If we take a small cube of pine, place it upon a table, and try its conducting power by placing on it a vibrating tuning fork, we find its resonant powers vary with the three different positions in which we may place it, proving to us the three different velocities of sound through it—1st, quickest along the fibres; 2nd, slower across the fibres, and across the layers which mark the growth of the tree; and, 3rd, slowest of all across the fibres and along the layers; and in acoustics we have a law of the transmission of vibrations at right angles, perhaps analogous to the law of magnetic currents crossing at right angles to the currents of electricity; or of the undulations of the waves which produce light, and which are so constituted that the vibrations happen at right angles to the rays.
5Some may object to the preceding remarks, as certainly we find some of the old violins with the back cut
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