Here is another instance of the little reliance that can be placed upon authority when it goes beyond its own particular line. In this display which is the greater, its ignorance of the nature and structure of musical instruments, or its scholastic jumble of science? This passage I find in “The Life of the Greeks and Romans, by E. Guhl and W. Koner, translated by Francis Hueffer.” “The aulos proper resembles our hautboy and clarinet, differing, however, from the latter in the fact of its lower notes being more important than the higher ones. The aulos consisted of two connected tubes and a mouthpiece, to the latter of which belonged two so-called tongues, in order to increase the trembling motion of the air”; and of the capistrum or head straps, “the purpose of this bandage was to soften the tone by preventing violent breathing.” For connected errors of statement of fact, and audacity of ignorance in drawing inferences, these authorities would be hard to beat. If one thing is more certain than another on the authority of the Etruscan vases, it is that the pipes were not in any way connected; and in a stone head found by Cesnola, at Salamis, the strap passing round the cheeks is carved, and shows over the mouth two separate apertures for the pipes. This, already referred to, is absolutely conclusive. In the illustration, the raised mouthpiece merely appears to be nearer the top end in one pipe than in the other; for you should notice that in the upper one the end is jagged, and I have no doubt that originally both pipes were as the lower one, in which the end is completely closed. But whether interiorily the end was blocked near where the slant perforation entered the body of the pipe, I cannot see; I should say that it was, because we find it so customarily in flutes of other nations, both in modern and ancient usage. Here you will see that the distance from the end to the mouthpiece is quite two inches, and that end of the bronze cylinder was, I should think, a fixture; because I perceive that the mouthpiece itself is fitted upon a movable segment. Very curious that is, and no doubt had its purpose. Perhaps the design admits of the partial turning round of the segment of bronze to obtain a different angle of mouthpiece to the fancy of the player. Then notice, further, that the top finger hole is but a short distance from the mouthpiece; and, according to all experience with such pipes reed blown, I judge that, as that hole gives the octave note to the lower open end, some additional upper length is in demand, perhaps four inches or more. So if the distance is reckoned from that hole to the top of the table of mouthpiece as two inches, we require the reed and its fittings to occupy a further extent of from two to three inches. The diameter of the hole bored through the block, being but little more than an eighth and a sixteenth, shows that reeds must have been used.