-falls and rollers were replaced by tubes
operated by exhaust air. In 1850 he built with this action an organ of
42 speaking stops for the church of Notre Dame de la Dalbade at
Toulouse. This organ lasted 33 years. In 1866 Fermis, schoolmaster
and village organist of Hanterire, near Toulouse, improved on
Moitessier's action by combining tubes conveying compressed air with
the Barker lever. An organ was built on this system for the Paris
Exhibition of 1867, which came under the notice of Henry Willis, by
which he was so struck that he was stimulated to experiment and develop
his action, which culminated in the St. Paul's organ in 1872. (From
article by Dr. Gabriel Bedart in Musical Opinion, London, July, 1908.)

CHAPTER IV.

PNEUMATIC AND ELECTRO-PNEUMATIC ACTIONS.

Undoubtedly the first improvements to be named must be the pneumatic
and electro-pneumatic actions.

Without the use of these actions most of the advances we are about to
chronicle would not have been effected.

As before stated, Cavaille-Coll and Willis worked as pioneers in
perfecting and in introducing the pneumatic action.

The pneumatic action used by Willis, Cavaille-Coll and a score of other
builders leaves little to be desired. It is thoroughly reliable and,
where the keys are located close by the organ, is fairly prompt both in
attack and repetition. Many of the pneumatic actions made to-day,
however, are disappointing in these particulars.

TUBULAR PNEUMATICS.[1]

In the year 1872 Henry Willis built an organ for St. Paul's Cathedral,
London, which was divided in two portions, one on each side of the
junction of the Choir with the Dome at an elevation of about thirty
feet from the floor. The keyboards were placed inside one portion of
the instrument, and instead of carrying trackers down and under the
floor and up to the other side, as had hitherto been the custom in such
cases, he made the connection by means of tubes like gaspipes, and made
a pulse of _wind_ travel down and across and up and into the pneumatic
levers controlling the pipes and stops. Sir John Stainer describes it
as "a triumph of mechanical skill." He was organist of St. Paul's for
many years and ought to know. This was all very well for a cathedral,
where

". . . . the long-drawn aisles
The melodious strains prolong"

but here is what the eminent English organist, W. T. Best, said about
tubular pneumatic action as applied to another organ used fo