A GREAT ORGAN.

Temuka Leader, Issue 1386, 1 September 1885, Page 3

A GREAT ORGAN.

The largest organ in the world, with the exception of the one in Riga, Russia, is in the Cathedral of the Incarnation at Garden City, L.L, the church built by

Mrs A. T. Stewart as a memorial to her htisbnnd, The instrument is distributed '•in four distinct and widely separated localities of the cathedral, although the whole is under the control of one per- . former, through the agency of an electric action. In an octagonal chamber, built for the purpose in the angle formed by by the transept and chancel walls is the the largest portion of the instrument. The organ is here divided into floors, or storeys, and in the basement are the engine, countershaft, etc. Above this on a floor of brick and iron, are the bellows and the wind chest, on which rest the 32ft . pipes. The groat organ windchest, with that* for the reeds and mixtures of the

pedal organ, are on the next level, and then fellows the swell organ, and above all, the choir. Each of the three manual windchests is furnished with its own auxiliary reservoir, or “regulator,” where the wind is reduced to the pressure needed for that department. In the tower at the western end of the cathedral is the next important division c£ the organ. In this room, which is loft square, and is high enough to admit of one windchest being supported above another, are placed parts of the great, swell, and pedal organs and the whole of the solo organ, the second of these being above the fi-st, and the third at one side, and the fourth at the back. In the chapel beneath the cathedral is the third section, which is provided with claviers of its own, so that it may be made independently available for chapel purposes. This comprises a part of the choir organ, divided here between two manuals and two of the pedal stops. Its lone lises into the church through the different staircases and the distance lends eLftbdOUuent to the Bound, The last part

consists of the echo organ and one pedal stop, which is placed between the ceiling an>i the roof, above the intersection of the nave and transept. The mysterious source of the tones produces an interesting effect. Steam power is used in inflating the bellows. One engine is placed beneath the chancel division to supply it with compressed air, and another beneath the tower to operate the bellows of the chapel division, the tower division, and the magneto machine, which generates the electricity. All the wires used in making the electric connections of the instrument stretched out in a continuous circuit would extend over a distance of ; twenty-one miles.