e in 1835. It
was designed upon the exhaust principle.

[2] Dr. Gauntlett's idea was to play _all_ the organs shown in the
Great Exhibition in London, in 1851, from one central keyboard. He
proposed to place an electro-magnet inside the wind-chest under each
pallet, which would have required an enormous amount of electric
current. The idea was never carried out. This plan seems also to have
occurred to William Wilkinson, the organ-builder of Kendal, as far back
as 1862, but, after some experiments, was abandoned. An organ
constructed on similar lines was actually built by Karl G. Weigle, of
Echterdingen, near Stuttgart, Germany, in 1870, and although not at all
a success, he built another on the same principle which was exhibited
at the Vienna Exhibition in 1873. Owing to the powerful current
necessary to open the Pallets, the contacts fused and the organ was
nearly destroyed by fire on several occasions.

[3] Sir John Stainer, in the 1889 edition of his "Dictionary of Musical
Terms," dismisses the electric action in a paragraph of four lines as
of no practical importance. In that same year the writer asked Mr. W.
T. Best to come over and look at the organ in St. John's Church,
Birkenhead, which was then beginning to be talked about, and he laughed
at the idea that any good could come out of an electric action. He was
a man of wide experience who gave recitals all over the country and was
thoroughly acquainted with the attempts that had been made up to that
time. He did not want to see any more electric organs.

[4] Console--the keyboards, pedals and stop action by which the organ
is played; sometimes detached from the instrument.

[5] from Matthews' "Handbook of the Organ," p. 52 _et seq_.

[6] Organ built by the Ernest M. Skinner Co.

* * * * * *

[Illustration: DR. ALBERT PESCHARD. Inventor of Electro-Pneumatic
Action.]

Dr. Albert Peschard was born in 1836, qualified as an advocate
(Docteur en droit), and from 1857 to 1875 was organist of the
Church of St. Etienne, Caen, France. He commenced to experiment in
electro-pneumatics in the year 1860, and early in 1861 communicated his
discoveries to Mr. Barker. From that date until Barker left France,
Peschard collaborated with him, reaping no pecuniary benefit therefrom.
Peschard, however, was honored by being publicly awarded the Medal of
Merit of the Netherlands; the Medal of Association Francaise pour
l'Avancement d