VOICE IN MAN AND IN ANIMALS. 517 



curious change takes place suddenly in the configuration of the glot- 

 tis : it appears to be absolutely shut below and open above. In pro- 

 portion as the orifice is narrowed, the sound grows higher. The 

 singer recognizes the registers by the ear from the timbre, the physi- 

 ologist by the eye ; for the latter, one of the registers consists of the 

 series of sounds produced by the glottis when open along its entire 

 length, the other register represents the series of sounds given forth 

 by the glottis open through only a limited portion of its orifice. 



The ordinary limits of the voice include about two octaves of the 

 musical scale ; by practice one can easily attain 2|- octaves, but a com- 

 pass of three octaves, and especially of 3^- octaves, is very exceptional. 

 Hence, at the beginning of the present century, Catalani was regarded 

 as a sort of prodigy. In classing voices according to pitch we rec- 

 ognize three kinds of voice in men, viz., bass, barytone, and tenor, 

 and three in women, contralto, mezzo-soprano, and soprano. Bass 

 voices rarely fall below 173 vibrations, and soprano seldom exceed 

 2,069 vibrations per second. Still there have been deep voices which 

 produced the note corresponding to 8V vibrations, and acute voices 

 which attained as many as 2,784. The most famous cantatrices of our 

 day are instances of this. 1 The different types of voice are characterized 

 no less by their timbre than by their range. Voices present so many 

 varieties, they are so personal, that thorough classification is almost 

 impossible. Endless shades of difference are produced by the degree 

 of intensity of the harmonics : if the intensity is great, the voice is 

 brilliant, mordant ; if feeble, the voice is soft, sombre. In the larynx 

 itself, and in the trachea, there occurs a resonance, the effects of which 

 have not yet been determined. In bass voices they are very note- 

 worthy. The famous Lablache would have been an excellent subject 

 for experiments by physiologists. 



Having ascertained all the functions of the vocal apparatus, and 

 accounted for the origin of the sounds of speech and singing, we may 

 well be proud of the advance made by science, yet we cannot but be 

 chagrined to think that it is not in our power to determine to what 

 peculiarities of organic conformation the different kinds of voice are to 

 be attributed. All that we can affirm with certainty is, that the sound 

 produced is acute in proportion to the shortness of the vocal cords. 

 One might be inclined to believe that the larynx is more voluminous 

 in bassi than in tenori, in contralti than in soprani ; but this is not 

 universally the case. We cannot determine either the compass or 

 the quality of a voice from seeing the instrument. The elasticity, 

 suppleness, and contractility of the tissues, must have an immense in- 



1 In general the bass voice extends from faj = 173 vibrations to re 3 = 580 vibra- 

 tions ; the barytone from lai = 217 vibrations to fa 3 = 690 ; the tenor from re 2 = 290 

 vibrations to si 3 = 976 ; the contralto from sol 2 = 387 to fa 4 = 1,381 ; the mezzo- 

 soprano from si 2 = 488 to la 4 = 1,740; the soprano from ut 3 = 517 to ut 5 = 2,069 

 vibrations. 



