A musical percussion instrument; usually consists of a hollow cylinder with a membrane stretched across each end.
1 Preparing the tympan , regulating the impression, underlaying and overlaying, setting gauges, and other details explained.
2 The composition, which fills the tympan of the scarcely-pointed arch, represents Christ surrounded by the twelve Apostles.
3 Over the cylinder is supported a diaphragm or tympan T, provided with a conical mouthpiece M for speaking into.
4 It consisted of a table, along which the forme of type, furnished with a tympan and frisket, was pushed by hand.
5 The tympan of the duplicating machine is sometimes made uneven so that the impression of a typewriter is still further carried out.
6 The tympan employed for receiving is made of gold-beater's skin, having a stud at its centre and a springy stylus of steel wire.
7 The ornament is nearly confined to the tympan over the portal, the capitals of columns, and to the choir with its seven absidal chapels.
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