G'day Gurney,

Wheatstone's fingering prototype for his original "English System" (The Symphonium ... ?) was, indeed, mouthblown ... as was the Chinese "Sheng" of the previous 2½ millennia!

The Sheng was what the European instrument makers had only discovered after China expelled Jesuit priests (and their pilferings), around 1780. Once they worked out what it did - and how, they turned it into accordions, concertinas ... mouth organs ... then the harmonium (and lots of really weird side trips!).

Regards,

Bob Bolton