FORGE
694
FORM
The work was begun because our forests are disappearing so rapidly that it is calculated that they will be exhausted within 20 years. Another reason for trying to save them is that the water-supply and the soil depend on the forests. Where forests abound, the rain falls often and is kept a long while by the forest-soil, which is a kind of sponge, so that the streams have a steady supply and the flow and depth are regular. Where forests have been destroyed, the rain falls irregularly and flows away in floods at once. These cause great loss, and carry the soil away. This is called erosion, and a billion tons of fertile earth are taken to the sea every year by our rivers, whilj these themselves remain shallow and fill with stones and sand. So the saving of the water, on which agriculture, irrigation, the making of electricity, inland navigation, mining and even manufacturing all so largely depend, is a chief aim of the forest-service, as well as the preservation of a permanent supply of timber.
Already efficient protection for forests has increased the flow of their streams 25 per cent. Grazing lands, in the national forests, that had been almost ruined have begun to recover. Fire, the forest's worst foe, is so successfully fought that in 1907 only one eight-hundredth of the forest reserves had a fire, though their area is over 158,000,000 acres, and only three ten-thousandths were destroyed. At the same time new kinds of timber are being brought into use, with new ways of using and preserving old kinds, and the states and the private owners of forests are assisted in many ways.
Forge, a fire intensified by air-blasts. Forges formerly were generally made of bricks, the air being forced up beneath the fire by means of a bellows. They now are made of wrought or cast iron, and may be moved about from place to place. In former times forging was one of the most important arts in engineering and required expert workmen, but the steam-hammer and other like inventions of the present day have made forging a mechanical work. One of the largest forging machines in the world makes 600 to 1,200 strokes a minute.
Forget=Me-Not, a term applied to a flower of which there are many species, and accounted for by various legends. The flowers in the common forget-me-not are small, have five petals and are of a medium shade of blue.
Form, in music, a term of as wide application and significance in music as in philosophy. From a very common use forms of music may be classified according: (i) to the character of the tonal embodiment or mode of expression, i. e., vocal and instrumental, choral and orchestral; (2) function in social and religious life of peoples, i. e., secular, ecclesiastical, religious; (3)
inner character or nature of the subject defined, i. e. lyric, dramatic, programatic; (4) structural ordering, i. e., contrapuntal, polyphonic, monophonic, binary, ternary, first-movement, rondo, cyclical; (5) melodic material, i. e,, monodic — one primary melody with various modes of accompaniment ; pplyodic — each accompanying melody having a true and characteristic melodic significance, for example, Chopin's Etude in C-sharp minor; monothetic — one theme, treated in various ways in all the voices, as in the canonic and fugal forms; poly-thetic — more than one theme, as in the double and triple fugue, the suite, sonata, etc. Each of these classes contains a variety of individual forms, i. e,, vocal includes many types of song, the chorus, oratorio, part-song, madrigal, glee, etc. Under ecclesiastical heading are to be classed the hymn-tune, choral, mass, liturgical forms like the Gregorian tones, chants, responses, etc. and Bach cantatas.
Strictly speaking, form applies to two distinct aspects of musical conception; first, to the anatomical or architectural ordering of the rhythmic, harmonic and melodic content; second, to the plastic, the aesthetic molding of the tonal expression of the melodic and harmonic ideas through the application of rhythmic nuances, dynamic intensities, shadings and accents, modes of articulation and the wonderful varieties of tone-color. Hold a leaf to the light and look through it, and there is seen a very complex system of the individual elements of ribs, veins, cellular tissues, etc. in characteristic relations; that is the structural, architectural- design, form and unity of the leaf appealing to the intellect. Look again at the leaf and note the beauty of its rhythmic outline and symmetry, the warmth of its coloring and the delicacy of its aroma; that is the plastic, the aesthetic, the vital form reaching the heart. No work of art is of value that does not involve both these conceptions of form, and he only is an artist who, in conception and expression, realizes the beauties both of the structural and the aesthetic form of a work of art, be the art what it may — in this case, music.
A few simple melodies will suffice to illustrate the primary elements of structural form in music. We will begin with the tribal prayer of the Omaha Indians.
EXAMPLE i
