second shank transposes it to E, the third to E flat, and the fourth
to D. The fifth, and largest--two feet one and a half inches
long--extends the instrument to eight feet, and lowers the key to C.
The slide is used for transposition by a semitone or a whole tone,
thus making new fundamentals, and correcting certain notes of the
natural harmonic scale, as the seventh, eleventh, and thirteenth,
which do not agree with our musical scale. Mr. W. Wyatt has recently
taken out a patent for a double-slide trumpet, which possesses a
complete chromatic scale. In the required length of slide the ear has
always to assist. It is clear that the very short shifts of a double
slide demand great nicety of manipulation. It is, of course, different
with the valve trumpet. The natural trumpets are not limited to one or
two keys, but those in F, E, E flat, D, B flat, and even A have been
employed; but, usually, the valve trumpets are in F, and the higher B
flat, with a growing inclination, but an unfortunate one, to be
restricted to the latter, it being easier for cornet players. The tone
of the high B flat trumpet cannot, however, compare with the F one,
and with it the lowest notes are lost. Of course, when there are two
or three trumpets, the high B flat one finds a place. However, the
valve system applied to the trumpet is not regarded with satisfaction,
as it makes the tone dull. For grand heroic effect, valve trumpets
cannot replace the natural trumpets with slides, which are now only to
be heard in this country.

The simple or field trumpet appears to exist now in one representative
only, the E flat cavalry trumpet. Bach wrote for trumpets up to the
twentieth harmonic--but for this the trumpet had to be divided into a
principal, which ended at the tenth harmonic--and the clarino in two
divisions, the first of which went from the eighth harmonic up to as
high as the player could reach, and the second clarino, from the sixth
to the twelfth. The use of the clarinet by composers about the middle
of the last century seems to have abolished these very high trumpets.
So completely had they gone, by the time of Mozart, that he had to
change Handel's trumpet parts, to accommodate them to performers of
his own time, and transfer the high notes to the oboes and clarinets.

Having alluded to the cornet a piston, it may be introduced here,
particularly as from being between a trumpet and a bugle, and of four
foot tone, it is often made to do