tubas.  The euphonium and bombardon, the basses of the important family of saxhorns, now completely cover the ground of bass wind instrument music.  The keyed bugle, invented by Joseph Halliday, bandmaster of the Cavan militia, in 1810, may be regarded as the prototype of all these instruments, excepting that the keys have been entirely replaced by the valve system, an almost contemporary invention by Stoelzel and Blumel, in Prussia, in 1815.  The valve instruments began to prevail as early as 1850.  The sound tube of all bugles, saxhorns, and tubas is conical, with a much wider curve than the horn.  The quality of tone produced is a general kind of tone, not possessing the individuality of any of the older instruments.  All these valve instruments may be comprehended under the French name of saxhorn.  There is a division between them of the higher instruments or bugles, which do not sound the fundamental note, and of the lower, or tubas, which sound it readily.  Properly military band instruments, the second or bass division, has been taken over to the orchestra; and Wagner has made great use of it in his great scores.  The soprano cornets, bugles, or flugelhorns and saxhorns are in E flat; the corresponding alto instruments in B flat, which is also the pitch of the ordinary cornet.  The tenor, baryton, and bass instruments follow in similar relation; the bass horns are, as I have said, called tubas; and that with four valves, the euphonium.  The bombardon, or E flat tuba, has much richer lower notes.

For military purposes, this and the contrabass—­the helicon—­are circular.  Finally, the contrabass tubas in B flat, and in C, for Wagner, have immense depth and potentiality of tone; all these instruments are capable of pianissimo.

There are many varieties now of these brass instruments, nearer particulars of which may be found in Gevaert, and other eminent musicians’ works on instrumentation.  One fact I will not pass by, which is that, from the use of brass instruments (which rise in pitch so rapidly under increase of temperature, as Mr. Blaikley has shown, almost to the coefficient of the sharpening under heat in organ pipes) has come about that rise in pitch which, from 1816 to 1846—­until repressed by the authority of the late Sir Michael Costa, and, more recently, by the action of the Royal Military College at Kneller Hall—­is an extraordinary feature in musical history.  All previous variations in pitch—­and they have comprised as much as a fourth in the extremes—­having been due either to transposition, owing to the requirements of the human voice, or to national or provincial measurements.  The manufacture of brass instruments is a distinct craft, although some of the processes are similar to those used by silversmiths, coppersmiths, and braziers.