It would be anticipating the proper time for judgment, if we should speak of the excellence of the musical qualities of the great organ before having had the opportunity of hearing its full powers displayed.  We have enjoyed the privilege, granted to few as yet, of listening to some portions of the partially mounted instrument, from which we can confidently infer that its effect, when all its majestic voices find utterance, must be noble and enchanting beyond all common terms of praise.  But even without such imperfect trial, we have a right, merely from a knowledge of its principles of construction, of the preeminent skill of its builder, of the time spent in its construction, of the extraordinary means taken to insure its perfection, and of the liberal scale of expenditure which has rendered all the rest possible, to feel sure that we are to hear the instrument which is and will probably long remain beyond dispute the first of the New World and second to none in the Old in the sum of its excellences and capacities.

The mere comparison of numbers of pipes and of stops, or of external dimensions, though it gives an approximative idea of the scale of an organ, is not so decisive as it might seem as to its real musical effectiveness.  In some cases, many of the stops are rather nominal than of any real significance.  Even in the Haarlem organ, which has only about two-thirds as many as the Boston one, Dr. Burney says, “The variety they afford is by no means what might be expected.”  It is obviously easy to multiply the small pipes to almost any extent.  The dimensions of an organ, in its external aspect, must depend a good deal on the height of the edifice in which it is contained.  Thus, the vaulted roof of the Cathedral of Ulm permitted the builder of our Music-Hall organ to pile the facade of the one he constructed for that edifice up to the giddy elevation of almost a hundred feet, while the famous instrument in the Town Hall of Birmingham has only three-quarters of the height of our own, which is sixty feet.  It is obvious also that the effective power of an organ does not depend merely on its size, but that the perfection of all its parts will have quite as much to do with it.  In judging a vocalist, we can form but a very poor guess of the compass, force, quality of the voice, from a mere inspection of the throat and chest.  In the case of the organ, however, we have the advantage of being able to minutely inspect every throat and larynx, to walk into the interior of the working mechanism, and to see the adaptation of each part to its office.  In absolute power and compass the Music-Hall organ ranks among the three or four mightiest instruments ever built.  In the perfection of all its parts, and in its whole arrangements, it challenges comparison with, any the world can show.