y. He died at Paris in 1875.

WEICHOLD, Dresden. An excellent firm, who put their name on a
superior class of "trade bow."

WILSON, JOHN JAMES THOMPSON, London. Born March, 1864, worked in his
youth with James Tubbs, and later with C. E. Tubbs. Has worked much
for the trade.

With this list of bow makers ends the historical section of these
papers. As I have already explained, a perfect history of the bow is
quite impossible to obtain, and all I have attempted has been to lay
before my readers the facts I have accumulated. I have carefully
abstained from promulgating any theories of my own with regard to the
evolution of the bow (save in such cases where certain conclusions
have been forced upon me by the evidence found) as from the
conflicting nature of the records, I consider no one theory to be
sufficient. There seem to have been a number of separate influences
at work, the ultimate convergence thereof resulting in the production
of the perfect bow as we now know it. If I have been unable to make a
clear exposition of the bow's progress, I trust I have succeeded in
showing the unprincipled elimination of contradictory details
resorted to by earlier writers in order to achieve this desired end.
And I hope it will be understood that this has not been done in the
spirit of the small boy who, disappointed in his attempt to build a
sand castle, derives an alleviative gratification from the
destruction of the more imposing erections of his playmates.

PART II.
BOW MAKING.

CHAPTER IX.

MATERIALS--BRAZIL WOOD--HORSEHAIR--THE ACTION OF ROSIN.

It is curious to pass in review the strange events--the causes,
heterogeneous and improbable, that have produced many of the most
important results in the history of man. What fiddler, for instance,
when indulging in the customary smoke after an evening's "grind,"
realises his indebtedness for half his enjoyment to an unscrupulous
Genoese pirate of the fifteenth century? Yet, seeing that in addition
to wooden nutmegs, banjoes and other blessings of civilization
emanating from the New World, America gives us both tobacco and
Brazil wood (the only material of which it is possible to make a
thoroughly good bow), I think that, if I may liken the violinist's
mind to a temple of many shrines erected to all those who have
contributed to his welfare and enjoyment, there should be one niche
reserved for Christopher Columbus of egg-balancing fame.

It is also of interes