Speak′ing-trum′pet.
A conical, flaring-mouthed tube employed for intensifying the sound of the human voice, as in giving commands or hailing ships at sea, by firemen, etc.
The speaking-trumpet was used by
Alexander the
Great, 235 B. C. Tradition long reported that the hights of the Caucasus, reaching from the
Caspian to the Euxine, were occupied by the armies of Iskender (
Alexander), the dread
Doolkarnein or Two-Horned, so called from his being the conqueror of East and West.
The illusion was said to have been caused by enormous trumpets, placed on the marvelous series of ramparts known in fable as the Wall of Gog and Magog, and craftily disposed so as to sound when the wind blew in certain directions.
See
Leigh Hunt's poem, “The trumpets of Doolkarnein”
It is claimed by the modern school that the great horn, described in an old manuscript in the
Vatican Library as having been used by
Alexander the
Great to assemble his army, at a distance of 100 stadia or 8
Italian miles, was not really a
speaking-trumpet, as it is not expressly stated that he spoke through it. We prefer the tradition as it stands, for
Alexander was well acquainted with
Egypt, and the blast of trumpets was not unknown there.
Morland, who was born in 1625, and died in poverty in 1695, is believed to have given the speaking-trumpet its present form, though his claims are warmly contested by
Kircher.
Morland's pamphlet of 8 pages was published in 1671.
His first trumpet was made of glass.
The next was of brass; 4 1/2 feet long, 12 inches in diameter at the large end and 2 inches at the small end, which had a mouth-piece constructed like a bellows to move with the lips.
With this he rendered his voice distinct at a distance of half a mile.
His third trumpet was curved, made of copper, and had a length of 16 feet 8 inches; 19 inches diameter at the flaring end, and 2 inches at the smaller.
It rendered his speech audible at 1 1/2 miles. One of his largest carried the voice a distance of 2 or 3 miles at sea.
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Trumpet. |
Fig 5351 is an illustration of a spiral trumpet, described in
Pere Kircher's work, and pictured in
Pere Bonanni's curious work, “
Descrizione Degla Istromenti Armonici,”
Roma, 1776.
It is designed rather for augmenting the voice than for musical effects.
It is intended to be elliptical in cross-section, and it is claimed to have been suggested by the shape of the exterior aural canals of various animals.
Father Kircher takes occasion in this connection to mock the conclusions of
Baptista Porta and
Cornelius Agrippa that a sound might be made and then imprisoned in a tube by shutting up both ends, and then letting it out as required.
A very remarkable instance of this was afterward cited in the veracious history of
Baron Munchausen, whose tunes became frozen in his trumpet on a bitter cold day, and afterward issued when the instrument and its contents were thawed by the warmth of the tavern fire.
