252 On the Performances of different Ventriloquists. 



What follows is a farther proof of the extent and versatility 

 of the imitative powers possessed by some of these savao-es. 



u Ohotook^ and his intelligent wife Uigliak, paid me a visit, 

 and from them I obtained the names of many birds and ani- 

 mals, by showing specimens and drawings. Their little boy, 

 an ugly and stupid-looking young glutton, astonished me by 

 the aptitude with which he imitated the cries of each crea- 

 ture as it was exhibited. The young ducks answering the 

 distant call of their mother, had all the effect of ventriloquism ; 

 indeed, every sound, from the angry growl of a bear, to the 

 sharp hum of a muskitoe, was given in a wonderful manner by 

 this boy "M? 



Art. IX. — Account of the Performances of different Ventri- 

 loquists, with Observations on the Art of Ventriloquism. 



We have laid before our readers the preceding ingenious specu- 

 lations ofour late distinguished countryman, Mr Dugald Stewart, 

 on a subject equally connected with metaphysics and natural 

 philosophy. Like every thing which comes from his pen, they 

 are marked with the sagacity of his great mind ; and though they 

 do not contain the true explanation of ventriloquism, owing per- 

 haps to his ?iot having attended sufficiently to the physical part 

 of the inquiry, yet they have overturned many erroneous hy- 

 potheses which had been previously entertained, and have set 

 the subject in a juster point of view than any in which it had 

 hitherto been placed. 



Having had occasion to study the performances of some of 

 the most distinguished ventriloquists, and to make several ex- 

 periments on the direction of sound, we hope to be able to give 

 an explanation of the art, free from all ambiguity, and to sepa- 

 rate the ventriloquists into two classes, the real and the ficti- 

 tious, both of which produce the same effect by different means; 

 the former by the aid of an art which the latter cannot com- 

 mand, but the latter with an effect which is increased by the 

 very want of that art of which the former is possessed. 



Before we proceed, however, to the consideration of this part 

 of the subject, we must make the reader acquainted with the 



* Captain Lyon's Private Journal, pp. 149. 150, 



