X. On the Voivel Sotmds, and on Reed Organ-Pipes. 

 By ROBERT WILLIS, MA. 



FELLOW OP CAIUS COLLEGE, AND OP THE PHILOSOFBICAL SOCIETY. 



[Read Nov. 24, 1828, and March 16, I829.] 



The generality of writers who have treated on the vowel 

 sounds appear never to have looked beyond the vocal organs 

 for their origin. Api>arently assuming the actual forms of these 

 organs to be essential to their production, they have contented 

 themselves with describing with minute precision the relative 

 positions of the tongue, palate and teeth, peculiar to each vowel, 

 or with giving accurate measurements of the corresponding sepa- 

 ration of the lips, and of the tongue and uvula, considering 

 vowels in fact more in the light of physiological functions of 

 the human body than as a branch of acoustics. 



Some attempts, it is true, have been made at various times 

 to imitate by mechanical means the sounds of the human voice. 

 Friar Bacon, Albertus Magnus, and others, are said to have con- 

 structed machines of this kind, but they were probably mere 

 deceptions, like some contrivances which may be found in the 

 works of Kircher and other writers of the same description*. 



* Kircher. Musurgia, p. 303. Bp. Wilkins. Dadalus, p. 104. Schottus. Mechanica. 

 Ht/d. Pneum. p. 240, and Magia Univ. II. 155. 15. Porta. Magia Nat. p. 287. The 

 Invisible Girl was a contrivance of this kind. See Nich. Journ. 1802, p. 56, 1807, p. 69. 



