On some Errors of Statement concerning Organ-pipes in Recent Treatises on Natural Philosophy

Abstract

THAT our best teachers of science, both in their books and lectures make statements which are erroneous in fact, and inferences which are misleading whenever they touch upon the subject of wind instruments is not a little surprising, considering that intellects so highly trained hold in aversion any approach to inexactness, and the strangeness of it is that the errors arise through an ancient human custom, now supposed obsolete among philosophers, of “speaking without knowledge.”