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FunctionThis instrument was used to produce a specific sound by letting a rigid card come into contact with the rotating wheel. Was most likely used together with other similar wheels (with a different number of teeth) to generate various pitches. With the right wheels, one was able to reproduce a complete musical harmonic scale.
The French physicist Félix Savart (1791-1841) devised this system of generating sound frequencies and used these toothed wheels to try to determine the upper limit of audible frequencies.
ProvenanceFrom the Physics Department of Bowdoin College.