Excerpt from Orchestral Instruments and Their Use: Giving a Description of Each Of reed or wood, flat bits of metal, the vocal cords in the human throat, or the lips Of a per former pressed against the mouthpiec'e Of an instrument. The solid or hollow bodies that Vibrate under blows (instruments of percussion, they are called) may consist of almost any sub stance, - stretched skins or parchment, wood, stone, various kinds of metals, - and may have almost any shape. According to the records, the most ancient instrument is the flute, or whistle based upon the flute principle. A rudely fashioned bone Of an Irish elk, found near Desmond Castle, a whistle of reindeer bone discovered among troglodyte relics in the Dordogne valley, a bone pierced with several holes that was unearthed with old flint implements at Gourdan, and a stag - horn flute found near Poitiers, show us that if the cave-dwellers were not provided with orchestras, they at least possessed solo instruments. Of a later date than the stone age are the bronze tubes found in Belgium and Schleswig. But the most wonderful examples of this period are the old Egyptian flutes, which give a complete diatonic scale. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.