w with the strings of its accompanying
instrument would soon suggest experiments ending in the forming of
dulcimer-like instruments.[1] But if we grant that the art of
plucking a string had first advanced as far as the substitution of a
_plectrum_ for what Mace calls the "nibble end of the flesh," I fail
to see how such an implement could suggest the friction of a string,
as, if short enough for manipulation in its original use, it would
not be long enough to excite the continuous vibrations characteristic
of the bow.

[Footnote 1: The bow is frequently used now as a means of percussion
for certain effects.]

I do not accept the theory of a long _plectrum_ used for pizzicato
purposes, as I consider, with Engel, that such an implement would
have been unmanageably clumsy even for the primitive music of the
ancients. Whenever I see a rod, as in the accompanying drawing of the
Assyrian Trigonon, I maintain that its purpose was to excite
frictional vibrations.

[Illustration: FIG. 2.]

The method of performance readily suggests itself in this case as it
will be seen that it would be quite possible and convenient for the
player to pass his rod--probably a rough surfaced reed--_between_ the
strings. I do not think it could have been used for percussion as, in
that case, it would surely have had some hammer like projection at
its end; a salient feature hardly to be missed by the artist as were
the less obtrusive details of the true bow in later ages.

We are all familiar with the oft repeated anecdote of Paganini's
playing with a light reed-stem, and I remember having seen at
Christmas festivities in country homesteads, the village fiddler
playing a brisk old-time tune with the long stem of his clay pipe;
also, quite recently, I read an account of an "artiste" in the States
who charmed his enlightened audiences with his performances on the
violin by using a variety of heterogeneous objects in lieu of the
conventional bow, including a stick of sealing-wax and a candle!

Now I do not wish to prove that the implement held by the benign
Assyrian in Fig. 2, is either of the last named articles, but merely
to draw attention to the fact that friction-tone is producible
without the aid of a "bow" proper.

The use of plain reed stems or other suitable rods for the production
of continuous sounds would naturally soon give place to more
elaborately constructed implements; although Ruhlmann gives a drawing
of a portion of the scu