in 1892 at the residence of Mr. J. Martin
White, Balruddery, Dundee, Scotland.

OCTAVE COUPLERS.

In the days of mechanical action, couplers of any kind proved a source
of trouble and added greatly to the weight of the touch. The natural
result was that anything further than unison coupling was seldom
attempted.

In some organs hardly any couplers at all were present.

In Schulze's great and celebrated organ in Doncaster, England, it was
not possible to couple any of the manuals to the pedals, and (if we
remember rightly) there were only two couplers in the whole instrument.
Shortly after the introduction of pneumatic action, an organ with an
occasional octave coupler, that is a coupler which depressed a key an
octave higher or lower than the one originally struck, was sometimes
met with.

In the pioneer organ built by Hope-Jones in Birkenhead, England (about
1887), a sudden advance was made. That organ contains no less than 19
couplers. Not only did he provide sub-octave and super-octave couplers
freely, but he even added a Swell Sub-quint to Great coupler!

Octave couplers are now provided by almost all builders.

Though condemned by many theorists, there is no doubt that in practice
they greatly add to the resources of the instruments to which they are
attached. We know of small organs where the electric action has been
introduced for no other reason than that of facilitating the use of
octave couplers, which are now a mere matter of wiring and give no
additional weight to the touch.

Hope-Jones appears to have led in adding extra pipes to the wind-chest,
which were acted upon by the top octave of the octave couplers, thus
giving the organist a complete scale to the full extent of the
keyboards. He made the practice common in England, and the Austin
Company adopted it on his joining them in this country. The plan has
since become more or leas common. This is the device we see specified
in organ builders' catalogues as the "extended wind-chest," and
explains why the stops have 73 pipes to 61 notes on the keyboard. An
octave coupler without such extension is incomplete and is no more
honest than a stop which only goes down to Tenor C.

[1] The researches of Dr. Gabriel Bedart, Professeur agrege Physiologie
in the University of Lille, France, a learned and enthusiastic organ
connoisseur, have brought to light the fact that the first tubular
pneumatic action was constructed by Moitessier in Franc