Was it something about the wood?

By Chelsie Vandaveer

November 18, 2003

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Something remarkable happened in the mid to late 1400s; the world cooled and did not begin emerging from this cold until the 1850s. It was the Little Ice Age (LIA) and it may have been tied to solar activity.

The years of 1645 to 1715 saw the Maunder Minimum, a period with few sun spots, indicating reduced solar output. When the sun's output begin declining is impossible to tell; few observed the sun walking a fine line between the desire to learn and the edicts of the church that decreed the celestial spheres perfect.

A shop window displays hand-made Stradivarius violins.
William Albert Allard
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Trees 'remember' such things. In the rings are written the lengths of springs and summers, the amounts of rain, where they grew, and even the ratios of carbon isotopes over the years. The science of dendrochronology reads such things in trees. During the LIA, tree rings were different, there was less spring wood (large thin-walled vessels of xylem) compared to summer wood (smaller thicker-walled vessels, more compact xylem).

Lloyd Burckle and Henri D. Grissino-Mayer hypothesized this change in ratios of spring to summer wood may account for the tonal qualities of the violins of the Cremona luthiers. Several of Stradivari's "golden age" violins have been dated by dendrochronology to the period of the Maunder Minimum. ("Stradivari, violins, tree rings, and the Maunder Minimum: a hypothesis", Lloyd Burckle and Henri D. Grissino-Mayer, Dendrochronologia Vol.21 no.1, 2003)

Certainly, this age is left to wonder how Stradivari selected his abeti di risonanza, his firs (spruces, Picea species) of resonance while walking in the Alps. Did he tap the trees with a walking stick, listening for a certain sound?

Little is known of how wood was cured during the late Renaissance/early Baroque. Without large kilns, the lumber was aged over a number of years. But slowly aging lumber attracts woodworms and termites and can decompose from the action of fungi and bacteria.

Joseph Nagyvary proposes the wood was protected by submerging in sea water for years to imbibe the wood with a mineral content. And this addition of minerals to the cells of the xylem may well have changed the resonance of the wood. ("Secrets of the Stradivarius: An Interview with Joseph Nagyvary", Charles Choi, Scientific American, June 10, 2002)

Alan Cutler wrote a brief article, "The Little Ice Age: When global cooling gripped the world" for the Washington Post, August 13, 1997. To learn more about life during the Little Ice Age, click on the link:

http://www.geology.um.maine.edu/ges121/lectures/11-little-ice-age/little-ice-age.html

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killerPlants Tendrils: ~~1~~2~~3~~4~~5~~

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