The San Francisco Call. Newspaper, October 18, 1896, Page 25

The Devil-Fish and the Pearl-Diver. How a Blind @irl Printed a Library of Musie “I print my own music,” said a blind girl. “I have a large library which I have printed. See, here is Mendelssohn’s Sonata in C. Here are twenty of John Sebastian Buch’s ‘Inventions,’ and here is | the ‘Sonata Pathetique,’ by Beethoven; organ music, too, and songs.” Was the sightless face pathetic? -No, on the contrary, the speaker was jolly, sun- shiny, radiant, triumphant. She sang a song about “Moonlight Splendor,” and her voice soared and sang like a skylark, with never a suggestion of reeret in it that the moonlight splendor could not dawn on her except through her imagina- tion. What does the printing of music in- volve? Two staffs or three, according to whether it is written for the pianoor the organ, must be covered with notes, rests, expression marks, phrasing, signatures, accidentals and so on. There must be let- ters to indicate the use of pedals and stops, and the hand to be used in playing | one part or the other. Where there are eyes an etude must have figures to indi- cate the proper fingering. Then there are the diminnedo and deccescendo angles to be constructed, the staccato dots, the slurs, ties, the movements, the acecel- erando and the reverse, the tempo, the qualifying conditions, all to be indicated, Take the music of the modern school, | particularly Weber, Wagner, Mendels- sohn and so on, and the accidentals neces- sary for their harmonic purposes are scat- tered along the pages ‘“‘thick as autumnal leaves that strew the brooks of Vallom- brosa.”” The thick chords and sudden transitions in tempo and key puzzle the skilled musician, who, with fuil sight, wrinkles his or her brow and studies over their unexpected complications. Sum it all up and it shall be truly said, as of common knowledge and belief, and absolutely correct, that 1o transcribe the modern symphomy, concerto or fugue is as far above the copying of ordinary read- ing matter as work of the learned Champollion at the Pyramids exceeds that of the schoolboy who awkwardly copies a *‘Mother Goose” tale for practice in pen- manship. How, then, shall the totaliy blind learn to make copies of great musical composi- tions which embrace hundreds of thousands of notes, scores and scores of expression marks, the most unusual and | remarkable harmonic combirations, and never make a mistake? This question was suggested by the statement of the blind girl thet she could write her own music and that she al~eady bas a library of it which she has created. The speaker was Miss Gussie Mast of Berkeley. Questions led to the unrolling | of what may be termed a modern musical romance, having the added charm of strict truth. “All our music,”’ said Miss Mast, “is written in a straight line, regardless of the position of the notes on the staff or whether they are above or below the staff. Signa- tures, tempo, expression marks and all the rest of it proceed in an undeviating line. The notes which make up chords follow each other singly in due succession, and we cepote the position of the note and the composition of a chord or series of chords by intervals. The same applies to runs in which there are skips. Knowing the time and the value of notes that in the aggre- gate are found in any one measure, we have no difficulty in locating the chords. ‘We have to reason, oh, yes, of course. “Now you will see that there must bea separation of the different parts—the right- hand part from the left-hand part—to make it clear, and then, in organ music, there is also the pedal part. Each partis | written separately and every one in a per- fectly straight line or series of straight lines. Every graae of value is indicated. Thus we have sizns for the whole notes, half-notes, quarter-notes and eighth-notes, and the smaller subdivisions are indicated by the use of the same sig: We make out that by the amount which we know must be in the measure, which is, of course, | a fixed quantity, indicated at the begin- ! ning of the movement. We have signs { | for every possible expression mark and all that isjimplied by that, ties, slurs and 50 on. “‘The intervals are indicated by an arbi- trary understanding. Thus in the treble | the intervals read downward always. Take the chord of C natural for familiar illustration. fn the right-hand part the intervals would read as follows: C, 4, 6, 8. Inthe le{t hand the intervals read up- ward, and in the same chord the reading would be C, 3, 5, 8. This is the outline of the system, and now for the mechanical | part, the printing.” Miss Mast went to a small machine, fit- ted up with certain white and black keys, | which do not resemble the arrangement on the keyboard of a piano in any one oc- tave, but which gave the appearance of a keyboard in other respects. Between roll- ers she deftly inserted a sheet of prepared paper, finding no difficulty in adjusting it to a nicety in the complete darkness which | enveloped her. Cheerfully she drummed | away for a few seconds, sometimes using only one key, then a combination of two | keys, and so on, and thereby produced the example in musical notation whichis here reproduced. This she first made on paper, which, being verforated, left projections which to the delicate fingers of blind mu- sicians mean notes, etc., at the bottom of the notation example being also a part of “Yankee Doodle.” Next she seized a thin zinc plate and in- serted it between the rollers of another machine, which was equipped with a part Miss Gussie Mast, the Blind Girl Who Prints Music. e THE SAN FRANCISCO CALL, SUNDAY, OCTOBER 18, 1896. Compensations for Lost Vision of » keyboard like the first, having also a pedal. With this combination she speed- ily reproduced the musical perforations in zine which had before béen only in the vaper. With this plate she could print, on prepared and moistened paper, any de- sired number of sheets of the same music. Thus it is that it has been a comparatively easy matter to accumulate not only a musi- cal library for one person’s use, but also to produce duplicates indefinitely. “Let not the blind lead the blind lest both fall into the ditth” runs a revered and time-honored saying. But when Gussie Mast prints exercises, eludes, sonatas, etc., she not only leads blind musicians without leading them into the ditch, but successfully guides them through musical intricacies which might well puzzle persons who have unimpaired vision. It will naturally suggest itself to all musicians and to those having oniy the most sugerficial contact with music, theo- retically or practically as executants that having all the treble written by itse!f, line after line, and the bass also written in the same way, especially where there isa pedal ‘ compelled to face. On the contrary, music part for the organ added, here is a difficuity which no musician with eyes is calculated for seeing is written all to- gether, the bass upder the treble, and the skilled reader of music takes in both staffs, or three, 1f there be three, simul- taneously. This leads to perbaps the most remarkable part of this musical romance of the blind. Naturally, the blind musician must memorize every composition for verform- ance. As she cannot learn the treble and bass at once, it follows that she encounters a problem much more complex than is presented to the musician with eyes, es- pecially when modern music of the lighter class is considered. This can be explained so that it will be easily as intelligible to the unmusical as to the musical. Take one measure, for instance. Possibly the treble may consist of four groups of five notes each and the bass consists of eight notes of equal length and the pedal part | moves 1 a different way, perhaps four notes of equal length or three notes of | equal length and four notes which to- gether equal in time value one of the others. | Let the reader attempt first to strike his | right hand twenty times on the table, then | strike hisleft hand eight times on the tabl then beat with one or both feet on the floor seven times. When he can do this let him try to combine the three move- ments, learned separately, and make them all proceed together, giving the twenty beats one time, tne eight another and the seven another and perform these several acts while he is counting four with mod- erate speed. If that does not suggest it- self to the imagination as possessing diffi- culties, let another illustration of the same sort voint the further difliculties of an en- tire musical composition learned 1in three different sections and memorized in sec- tions and then put togetber and per- formed as & whole. Perhaps the composition lasts twenty minutes and is a fugue—that is, a compo- sition in which one part repeats another with various effects. Take two typewriters and place them side by side and try to write the same series of words, perhaps a dozen in number, on the two machinpes, one word on one machine and another word on another, in due succession, both machines going simultaneoasly, and never get a word out of place or misspell it, while going at top speed, Pearls on the Floor of the Ocean The agent of the English proprietors of the concession granted by the Mexican Republic for 2 monopoly of peari-hshing in the Gulf of California recently arrived in San Francisco and zave spme interest- ing details of the present methods em- ployed in their industry, which has con- tinued ever sin¢e the occupation of the country in the time of Cortez. The whole coast of tne Gulf of Califor- nia abounds in pearls, and the conces- sions control the entire territory. . Until within the last few years native divers were employed, and the depth to which they could descend did not exceed thirty- five feet. With the introduction of diving apparatus the limit of depth was increased to thirly fathoms. The best divers could formerly remain under water not to ex- ceed two minutes. A moderndiver thinks nothing of a two-hour stop in water a hundred feet in depth, though at greater depths the stay is necessarily shortened on account of the enormous pressure of the superincumbent water. A diver, when upon the floor of the ocean, looks about for the oyster which he tears from the object to which it is attached, and places it in a small bag hanging to a rope which is haaled into the boat on a given signal. Sometimes the number of oysters secured is large, at other times gnly a few are caught. The diver does not confine himself to the pearl oyster alone, but if he sees a rare specimen of coral or a new species of shell he places them in his bag and sends them to the surface, where they become the property of the conces- sion and one source of its large income. Last year the vaiue of the pearls har- vested in Lower California was alone $350,000. In addition 5000 tons ef shells were exported, which were valued at $1,250,000 more. Pearl-fishing is the entire occupation of the natives, and La Paz, the headquarters, a city of the peninsula, with aboup 2000 inhabitants, is solely dependent upoh the industry. The business is one of chance, and the pursuit is a fascinating one to the natives, who are all born gamblers. Every oyster does not contain its pearl and only at intervals, and rare ones at that, is a really valuable pear! discovered. The largest one ever found was about three-quarters of an inch in diameter and was sold in Paris to the Emperor of Austria for $10,000. Many black pearls are found in Lower California and are valued higher than the pure white. The large majority are seed pear!s and of only moderate value. San Francisco is not the market for Mexican pearls, though 1t ought to be. The harvest is exported straignt to Lon- don and Paris and distributed from those great markets. The dangers of pearl-fishing have always been exaggerated, possibly to giye « fic- titious value to the bezutiful gems. The loss of life in the fisheries of Lower Cali- fornia was undoubtedly larger before the introduction of the diving dress, but it is not an established fact that the deaths were always caused by the shark or octo- pus, though these marine monsters were without doubt responsible for the loss of many lives. Every diver has plenty of hair-rasing stories to relate of narrow escapes from death, but, as he is the only witness of these affairs, it makes the diffi- culty of substantiating them so much the greater. The occupation at best is a hazardous one, and those who were engaged in it before the introduction of diving appara- tus were always short-lived. The demand in the world’s markets for pearls of extra beauty is always far in excess of the supply. “It was built by the devil, senor,” said old Rodrigo Otero, in answer to a ques- tion concerning the age of a dilapidated adobe house that standson the banks of Alameda Creck not far from Niles, And old Rodrigo may be right for all anybody living knows. The house re- ferred to is used as a sort of storeroom for a nursery, but none of the work of storing isdone by the Mexicans or Indians living near by. They wou!d almost as soon think of cutting off their right hands as going inside the accursed structure. ‘There is no record known to exist that tells who built the place. 1t 1ssaid to have been there when the mission back on the hill was built. The present owner says it wason the 1ond when he bought it, many years ago. It did not take him long to find out that it was “haunted.” In bisestimation it may be only the imagination of the natives, but if the stories they tell are true the place ought to be the abode of spirits. *Nobody knows more about that bad house than I do, senor,” continued old Rodrigo, after he had rollea a cigarette. “My father he was killed in there and we never found the murderer. Of course not. It was the devil. “But I have seen my father since, senor, and he tell me to keep away from the old house. He come out of his grave one night to tell me. Ohb, but I was fright- ened. I was going to run, but he raised his hand and I stop. I don’t know what words he say, but I don’t go near the house any wore. g “And, senor, I bave seen terrible things at the old house. One night I got lost in the foz and came very close before I know. Then I hear terrible screams and see flames rollinz all around. The ground shake and the airturn green. Nextmorn- ing we fird two dead men near the door. “My little grandson he no tell lie, and he see crowds of people, ull bones, dancing around the house. He run home quick, and next morning we find onedead man, Every man who go inside get killea by Lake Eleanor lies in a secluded valley on the western slope of the Sierra Nevada Mountaing in Tuolumne County. Sur- rounded oy lofty trees and loftier peaks, the clear blue plain of water, two miles long and one mile wide, ripples and smiles above the skeletons of a lost tribe. This lake has been known to white settlers of California for at least forty years, though very few have ever heard of it and fewer still have seen it. Indians and sheepherders are its only visitors. To look at it would give proof of the un- usual and would prepare the mind to credit the story of its formation. Stand. ing out in the water more than 100 yards from shore is a group of large fir trees, dead but upright, with their roots in the bed of the lake, thirty feet below the sur- face. There they stand, monuments of the past, to prove that they were there before the water came. ‘What is now Lake Eleanor was once s large and lovely valley, on.the floor of In several late issues of various news- papers, more particularly on the Pacific Coast and of the National capital, there have appeared articles during the last few menths criticizing the manner in which the boundary line was run between the United States and the Dominion of Canada, and seriously questioning the an- nouncement of the British Government. that the line was perfectly correct. This criticism has related more to the boundary line on the extreme westerly portion of the continent than to any other part. The contentions of both sides are remark- ably convincing, and it is hard to tell by reading the arguments pro and con what the real status of the matter 1s. 1t was my good fortune a few months ago to meet a gentleman in Chilliwhack, British Columbia, who, being present dur- ing the operations of the Boundary Com- mission, knows a great deal about the matter. He unhesitatingly declares that the line has been wrong from the begin- ning and that a peculiar error of jude- ment on the part of the leaders of both commissions has been responsible for the whole trouble. Mr. Stevenson (for that is my informant’s name) is & well-known rancher and mine-owner in British Colum- pia. He told me the following facts during our conversation: “In Beptember, 1860, I was gold mining on Rock Creek, when the American engi- neers and the British engineers, then locating the 49th parallel and putting up the monuments, met near Boundary Creek, the British engineers coming from the west and the Americans from the east. Well, as I say, the parties them- selves met, but their surveys did not, by over 300 yards. The British Iine was north, Each party A Hut That Was Built by Séfan devil. Ke:p away, senor, or we find you dead in the morning.” These and many others just as blood- curdling are the kind of stories the Mexi- cans and Indians tell abont the old house on the banks of Alameda Creeck. But many Americans also claim to have heard strange sounds near the old place. It is true that within the last forty years sey- eral men have been found murdered in or near the place, and those who committed the deeds were never found. Peculiar lights have been seen by many people and | no cause ever found for them. All things considered nobody can biame the poor In- dians for not wanting to go near the place. They cannot explain the strange happen- ings. DBut then nobody else can, so it may be that the devil is responsible for it all. Everything, however, has its advan- tages, even a haunted house. The owner says he is glad it is haunted because he can leave anything he wants on the inside without locking the door and it will not be stolen. Queer Lake and a Marked Indian which grew gigantic oaks, from which the air, was an immense column of water that Indians gathered acorns in the fall to make flour for winter. There, too, were pines bearing nuts, and up the slopes were hazel-nuts and balsams. At the time of the sinking of the valley a large band of Indians were camped there, on the banks of a tiny creek, which ranin and out of the Tuolumne River. Acorns and nuts were plentiful, and they had gathered enough to store their winter wigwams in the foothills. They were lin- geying, almost ready to depart, when they heArd a rumbling and quaking of the earth beneath them. Paralyzed with fear, they nesitated a moment, when a second and heavier shock threw them down. With 2 mighty effart the tribe tried to esoape, crawling and ranning, but they were doomed, all but three or four being entombed. There came a roar louder than cannon, .and the floor of the valley drooped, while from the center, springing many feetin tions the two lines had lapsed fully thirty miles. At first it was presumed that the Americans were in error, and some of TUncle Sam’s citizens built stores ¢lose up to the northern or British line at Bound- ary Creek and called the place American Town. At present no trace exists of the place except the remains of some stone chimneys. These storekeepers bought their goods at Portland and The Dalles; they would pay no duty to our cnstoms, and Judge Cox, then & British Commis- sioner for the district, could not enforce the payment. That winter a Commis- sioner was appointed by each Govern- ment, and these officials met near Osoyoos Lake some time in April, 1861. I was at that time custom-house officer on the lake, having receivea the appointment from Governor Sir James Douglas earlier In the year. I rode over frequently to see the Commissioners. Their work to me seemed to be done principally at night, Each party had one astronomer. At the end of six weeks their labor was completed, and the decision then made was that the Americans were right to a foot. The Brit- ish then commenced to pull down their stone monuments, but they could not put up the trees that were cut down for a hun- dred feet in width along the survey line, and to this'day any one may see two ave- nues cut through the forest, each 100 feet wide, running parallel, and over 300 yards apart. " “The whole thing was kept very quiet, and there are few living to-day who know anything of the mistake. During these 1ast thirty-five years I have never once seen it mentioned in a newspaper, but, nevertheless, it is true. Assoon as the boundary line was settled the merchants its work, and before they ceased opera- | trouble, for the minen\who bad bought soon overflowed what had been the center of a valley. Among the few to escape by running and swimming was a squaw. After they had waited in vain for traces of their com- panions they went to their wigwams and told the awiul fate of the tribe. Shortly after the squaw zave birth to a pappoose, whom shenamed Dick. From the center of the infant’s head was a little patch of gray hair, which as be erew older, lengthened to about six inches. It is transparent, resembling nothing so much as a fountain of clear, springing water. Dick lives yet in the little town of Groveland, an old Indian of quiet de- meanor, with ever a red handkerchief on his head. Heis very unwilling to show his snowy lock,and will only walk swiftly away should he be questioned concerning it. Meanwhile Lake Eleanor's waters sway gently to and fro and the dead firs point to the blue heavens. An International Boundary Line their goods would not pay their bills, The merchants applied to the Commissioner to aid them in collecting the money, but the Judge refused to have anything to do about the matter, saying that they had bought their goods in the United States and had paid no duty thereon. The miners gave as their reason for not paying the bills the fact that the goods tbat had been sold them were actnally smuggled. “Now were there two mistakes made or did the British engineers first make the mistake at Point Roberts and carry it through for fully 200 miles? My belief is that theré was only one mistake and that was made at the starting-point, namely Point Roberts, and that consequently the whole boundary line is wrong clear through from there to Osoyoos Lake, “The British engineers claim that their instruments got out of order at some in- tervening spot between Paint Roberts and Boundary Creek, but I think more likely that the error was made at the starting- place. I fully believe that the boundary line at the town of Blaine, now considered in American territory, is in reality over 800 yards north of the 49th parallel. It would be interesting to know whether, on a proper resurvey, the United States Government would return us that strip of land or would they ciaim that thirty years of peaceful possession gave them a Tight to it? “The American engineer who laid out the town of Blaine has openly stated to me that most of it was in British terri- tory.” . After interviewing Mr. Stevenson I vis- ited Mr. Carey, one of the most prominent kept on stubbornly at|of American Town found themselves in | engineers and surveyors in Victoria, B. C., and one of the oldest residents of British Marine Forest in the Guif of California. Canadian Border Surveys That Failed to Meet Columbia. Mr. Carey claims to havea perfect knowledge of all the circumstances surrounding the work of the Boundary- line Commission, and he takes Issue em- phatically with Mr, Stevenson. Mr. Ca- rey’s statements should have a great deal of weight, as he himself was one ot the junior officials of the American side of the commission and has a perfect recollection of its work. After informing him of Mr. Stevenson’s statements and asking for an expression of opinion for publication, he said: “In the first place, Mr. Stevenson is wrongin his dates. In the year 1858 the \American Boundary Commission arrived at Point Roberts in cherge of Commander Campbell. The commander was accom- panied by Captain Parke, a graduate of ‘West Point, who was acting as chief as- tronomer, and Clint Garner of Washing- ton, D. C. The latter had just returned from the South, where he had been the hedd of a party surveying the Mexican boundary. He was second astronomer to the American Boundary Commission. Under these gertlemen was a corps of ex- cellent qualified surveyors, each man being thoroughly trained in his duty. “The body stayed at Point Roberts for a year and during the whole of that time they worked at getting the central point of the survey. At the end of the vear the British party arrived at Point Roberts, accompanied by a body of royal engineers. The party was headed by Colonel Hawkins, Captain Haigh (chief astronomer), Cap- tain Darragh, Lieutenant (now General) Plummer and Lieutenant Wiison (now Sir Charles Wilson of Soudan fame). “T will tell you how the line was estab- lished. The astronomical observations by which the American party, while waiting for the Britishers, had established the initial point were proved by Colonel Hawkins to be correct, and then the two vparties started east from Point Roberts. “The American surveyors had the finest instruments in the world. They were im- ported from Austria at great cost, and no expense was spared in picking out the best and most accurate. They were timed to under half a second. The British sur- yéyors had also magnificent instruments, and in addition to this the men of both parties were probably the most intelligent and capable in the world for carrying out this class of work. They were the pick of two nations. “‘As the parties moved along on either side they camped at every eight miles during the course and each body at once proceeded to define the spot through which the line would pass, This opera- tion took from four to six weeks, neither party approaching the other till the calcu~ lations of both were completed. Then notes were compared and a spot fixed on, when the parties moved on another eight miles, where the observations were re- peated. The manner in which these ob- servations were carried out shows how varticular both bodies were to locate the line accurately without any chanc: of de- viation one way or the other. “Before any work was doné a tree was cut down within four feet of the ground and the larger instruments were securely fixed to the stump in order to make them perfectly stationary and under no earth action whatever. The camps were built in a semicircle around these instruments and the night observations were carried on with the greatest care and attention. Then when the point between the two camps was finally decided on, a stone monument was placed over this spot. *And this procedure was followed out right to the Columbia River, and I believe throughout the whole suryey. The boun- dary as defined at present is, I firmly be- lieve, perfectly correct. There has never been any evidence to shaka the truth of the survey from the dsy it was made until now, and knowing asI do the status of the men who carried it out, and the very great care exercised with such unceasing vigi- lance all through the expedition, it is in- credible that a mistake should have been made.” With two such statements as these, diametrically opposed to one another, it is difficult, without being able to retrace the survey step by step, to obtain any =sc- curate knowledge of the subject. But the weight of reasoning seems to lie with Mr, Carey’s opinions. Itis indeed incredible, as he states, that men who were selected by both the British and American Goy- ernments on account of their peculiar fit- ness for the work of running the survey should have made such an unaccountable mistake as has been over and over sgain charged up against them. Huen Karyerua. These Waters Wash the Skeletons of a Lost Tribe.