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THE CARDINAL VOL. I PLATTSBURGH, N. Y., MARCH 28. 1906 No. 3 ON RHYTHM IN MUSIC. In tracing the ancestry of our modern pianoforte we have to go back but little over a hundred years, or to 1806, to find the best instru- ments of that day with a compass of less than six octaves. Before 1709 the -species was not in existence, that year being the recognized date of its mutation from the family of harpsi- chords. The ancestors of the harpsichords were known as spinets or verginals. They possessed but four octaves and flourished in the fifteenth century. These forms de- scended from the Olavicytherium, a name reminding us of the Megather- ium, but the creatures were really distinct and their sounds probably differed widely Back of the Clavi- cytherium reigned the Clavichords, with strings not of wire but of gut, and these were derived from the Dulcimers of the thirteenth century, —strings stretched over a box and played upon by little hammers held in the hand. And still the line be- comes more simple as it goes back,— we reach next the Ciitlhera of ten strings and back of this a harp which had but four. Some bold musico- zoological evolutionist has put for- ward the hypothesis that this harp descended from the bow of tlhat wise man who used two strings, and this in turn from the simple bow that so often sang a merry note for the archr- ers of old. Whether this be true or not it is interesting to know that this old harp left a very numerous and di-
