Tafel.] 296 [October. 



tion of tlie sounds is produced by enlarging and contracting the ori- 

 fice of the pipe, Kempelen produced his vowels by applying an 

 India-rubber funnel to his vocal apparatus and closing its aperture 

 more or less with his hand. Dr. Briicke repeated this experiment 

 also, and found that the vowels thus obtained, were no worse than 

 those elicited from the pipe ; on the contrary, a little better. From 

 these two experiments, Dr. Briicke concludes that the vowels of the 

 human voice are produced by a lengthening and shortening of the 

 vocal tube, and a greater or lesser contraction of the opening of the 

 mouth. Thus, in the pronunciation of u m flute, he says the vocal 

 tube is elongated the most. He also admits that this sound may be 

 produced with the opening of the mouth enlarged, but not unless 

 the jaws and lips approach somewhat, analogous to the contraction of 

 the orifice of the funnel. In a similar manner he accounts for the 

 other vowels. To this explanation Prof. Kudelka (Ueber Herrn 

 Dr. Brucke's Lautsystem, Wien, 1858, page 18) objects that Dr. 

 Briicke makes no account of the experiment of Kratzenstein (Peters- 

 burg, 1781), who produced the vowels in an artificial manner by 

 fixing sundry pipes of an odd shape to a vocal apparatus ; and in 

 making an application of this third experiment to the human organs 

 of speech, he says that in the pronunciation of the vowels the vocal 

 tube is not only lengthened and shortened, and its orifice expanded and 

 contracted, but also its very shape altered by the various positions of 

 the tongue. In this he is correct, but he does not inform us what 

 particular shapes the tongue assumes. He even thinks it unneces- 

 sary, as, according to his wise remark, everybody knows by practice 

 how to place his tongue, in order to pronounce the several vowels. — 

 With regard to the formation of the vowels, it is my opinion that by 

 the contraction and various disposition of the parts forming the pha- 

 rynx, difi'erent angles are produced, by which the voice is deflected 

 as it proceeds from the glottis. By this deflection the rudiment of 

 some one of the vowels is impressed upon the sonorous breath, which 

 is afterwards developed into a full vowel by the corresponding shape 

 of the cavity of the mouth, as it passes out by the mouth. 



With regard to the arrangement of the internal parts of the mouth. 

 Dr. Briicke states (page 20) that PurJcine first rightly observed that 

 in passing over from a in father to a in ofje the pharynx, i. e. the 

 space between the larynx, the muscular portion of the pharynx itself, 

 the soft palate, and the root of the tongue, is enlarged and remains 

 so during the pronunciation of / in machine. This enlargement of 

 the pharynx he explains as a necessary consequence of the muscular 



