 |
| Fig. 8.—Modern Horn (Boosey & Co.) |
In 1812 Dikhuth,[1] horn-player in the orchestra of the grand-duke of Baden at Mannheim, constructed a horn in which a slide on the principle of that of the trombone was intended to replace hand-stopping and to lower the pitch at will a semitone.
The most felicitous, far-reaching and important of all improvements was the invention of valves (q.v.), pistons or cylinders (the principle of which has already been explained), by Heinrich Stölzel,[2] who applied them first of all to the horn, the trumpet and the trombone,[3] thus endowing the brass wind with a chromatic compass obtained with perfect ease throughout the compass. The inherent defect of valve instruments already explained, which causes faulty intonation needing correction when the pistons are used in combination, has now been practically overcome. The numerous attempts to solve the difficulty, made with varying success by makers of brass instruments, are described under Valve, Bombardon and Cornet.[4] (K. S.)
HORNBEAM (Carpinus betulus), a member of a small genus of trees of the natural order Corylaceae. The Latin name Carpinus has been thought to be derived from the Celtic car, wood, and pin or pen, head, the wood of hornbeams having been used for yokes of cattle (see Loudon, Ency. of Pl. p. 792, new ed. 1855, and Littré, Dict. ii. 556). The common hornbeam, or yoke-elm, Carpinus betulus (Ger. Hornbaum and Hornbuche, Fr. charme), is indigenous in the temperate parts of western Asia and of Asia Minor, and in Europe, where it ranges as high as 55° and 56° N. lat. It is common in woods and hedges in parts of Wales and of the south of England. The trunk is usually flattened, and twisted as though composed of several stems united; the bark is smooth and light grey; and the leaves are in two rows, 2 to 3 in. long, elliptic-ovate, doubly toothed, pointed, numerously ribbed, hairy below and opaque, and not glossy as in the beech, have short stalks and when young are plaited. The stipules of the leaves act as protecting scale-leaves in the winter-bud and fall when the bud opens in spring. The flowers appear with the leaves in April and May. The male catkins are about 112 in. long, and have pale-yellow anthers, bearing tufts of hairs at the apex; the female attain a length in the fruiting stage of 2 to 4 in., with bracts 1 to 112 in. long. The green and angular fruit or “nut” ripens in October; it is about 14 in. in length, is in shape like a small chestnut, and is enclosed in leafy, 3-lobed bracts. The hornbeam thrives well on stiff, clayey, moist soils, into which its roots penetrate deeply; on chalk or gravel it does not flourish. Raised from seed it may become a tree 40 to as much as 70 ft. in height, greatly resembling the beech, except in its rounder and closer head. It is, however, rarely grown as a timber-tree, its chief employment being for hedges. “In the single row,” says Evelyn (Sylva, p. 29, 1664), “it makes the noblest and the stateliest hedges for long Walks in Gardens or Parks, of any Tree whatsoever whose leaves are deciduous.” As it bears clipping well, it was formerly much used in geometric gardening. The branches should not be lopped in spring, on account of their tendency to bleed at that season. The wood of the hornbeam is white and close-grained, and polishes ill, is of considerable tenacity and little flexibility, and is extremely tough and hard to work—whence, according to Gerard, the name of the tree. It has been found to lose about 8% of its weight by drying. As a fuel it is excellent; and its charcoal is much esteemed for making gunpowder. The inner part of the bark of the hornbeam is stated by Linnaeus to afford a yellow dye. In France the leaves serve as fodder. The tree is a favourite with hares and rabbits, and the seedlings are apt to be destroyed by mice. Pliny (Nat. Hist. xxvi. 26), who describes its wood as red and easily split, classes the hornbeam with maples.
The American hornbeam, blue or water beech, is Carpinus americana (also known as C. caroliniana); the common hop-hornbeam, a native of the south of Europe, is a member of a closely allied genus, Ostrya vulgaris, the allied American species, O. virginiana, is also known as ironwood from its very hard, tight, close-grained wood.
HORNBILL, the English name long generally given to all the
birds of the family Bucerotidae of modern ornithologists, from
the extraordinary horn-like excrescence (epithema) developed
on the bill of most of the species, though to which of them it
was first applied seems doubtful. Among classical authors
Pliny had heard of such animals, and mentions them (Hist.
Nat. lib. x. cap. lxx.) under the name of Tragopan; but he
deemed their existence fabulous, comparing them with Pegasi
and Gryphones—in the words of Holland, his translator (vol. i.
p. 296)—“I thinke the same of the Tragopanades, which many
men affirme to bee greater than the Ægle; having crooked
hornes like a Ram on either side of the head, of the colour of
yron, and the head onely red.” Yet this is but an exaggerated
description of some of the species with which doubtless his
informants had an imperfect acquaintance. Medieval writers
found Pliny’s bird to be no fable, for specimens of the beak
of one species or another seem occasionally to have been brought
to Europe, where they were preserved in the cabinets of the
curious, and thus Aldrovandus was able to describe pretty
fairly and to figure (Ornithologia, lib. xii. cap. xx. tab. x. fig. 7)
one of them under the name of “Rhinoceros Avis,” though the
rest of the bird was wholly unknown to him. When the exploration
of the East Indies had extended farther, more examples
reached Europe, and the “Corvus Indicus cornutus” of Bontius
became fully recognized by Willughby and Ray, under the
title of the “Horned Indian Raven or Topau called the Rhinocerot
Bird.” Since the time of those excellent ornithologists
our knowledge of the hornbills has been steadily increasing, but
up to the third quarter of the 19th century there was a great
lack of precise information, and the publication of D. G. Elliot’s
“Monograph of the Bucerotidae,” then supplied a great want.
He divides the family into two sections, the Bucerotinae and the
Bucorvinae. The former group contains most of the species,
which are divided into many genera. Of these, the most remarkable
is Rhinoplax, which seems properly to contain but one
species, the Buceros vigil, B. scutatus or B. geleatus of authors,
commonly known as the helmet-hornbill, a native of Sumatra
and Borneo. This is easily distinguished by having the front
of its nearly vertical and slightly convex epithema composed
of a solid mass of horn[5] instead of a thin coating of the light
- ↑ See the description of the instrument and of other attempts to obtain the same result by Gottfried Weber, “Wichtige Verbesserung des Horns” in Allg. musik. Ztg. (Leipzig, 1812), pp. 758, &c.; also 1815, pp. 637 and 638 (the regent or keyed bugle).
- ↑ See Allg. musik. Ztg., 1815, May, p. 309, the first announcement of the invention in a paragraph by Captain G. B. Bierey.
- ↑ Ibid., 1817, p. 814, by F. Schneider, and Dec. p. 558; 1818, p. 531. An announcement of the invention and of a patent granted for the same for ten years, in which Blümel is for the first time associated with Stölzel as co-inventor. See also Caecilia (Mainz, 1835), Bd. xvii. pp. 73 seq., with illustrations, an excellent article by Gottfried Weber on the valve horn and valve trumpet.
- ↑ For a very complete exposition of the operation of valves in the horn, and of the mathematical proportions to be observed in construction, see Victor Mahillon’s “Le Cor,” also the article by Gottfried Weber in Caecilia (1835), to which reference was made above. A list of horn-players of note during the 18th century is given by C. Gottlieb Murr in Journal f. Kunstgeschichte (Nuremberg, 1776), vol. ii. p. 27. See also a good description of the style of playing of the virtuoso J. Nisle in 1767 in Schubart, Aesthetik d. Tonkunst, p. 161, and Leben u. Gesinnungen (1791), Bd. ii. p. 92; or in L. Schiedermair, “Die Blütezeit d. Ottingen-Wallensteinschen Hofkapelle,” Intern. Mus. Ges. Smbd. ix. (1), 1907, pp. 83-130.
- ↑ Apparently correlated with this structure is the curious thickening of the “prosencephalic median septum” of the cranium as also of that which divides the “prosencephalic” from the “mesencephalic chamber,” noticed by Sir R. Owen (Cat. Osteol. Ser. Mus. Roy. Coll. Surg. England, i. 287); while the solid horny mass is further strengthened by a backing of bony props, directed forwards and meeting its base at right angles. This last singular arrangement is not perceptible in the skull of any other species examined by the present writer.
