KEMPELEN S TALKING ENGINE. 



269 



sounds of the consonants P, M, L, and by means of these 

 vowels and consonants, he could compose syllables and 

 words, such as mama, papa, aula, lama, mulo. The sounds 

 of two adjacent letters, however, run into each other, and 

 an aspiration followed some of the consonants, so that 

 instead of papa the word sounded phaa-ph-a ; these diffi- 

 culties he contrived with much labour to surmount, and he 

 found it necessary to imitate the human organs of speech 

 Fig. 48. 



by having only one mouth and one glottis. The mouth 

 consisted of a funnel or bell-shaped piece of elastic gum, 

 which approximated, by its physical properties, to the 

 softness and flexibility of the human organs.* To the 

 mouth-piece was added a nose made of two tin tubes, 

 which communicated with the mouth. When both these 

 tubes were open, and the mouth-piece closed, a perfect M 

 was produced, and when one was closed and the other 

 open, an N was sounded. M. Kempelen could have 

 succeeded in obtaining the four letters D, G, K, T, but by 

 using a P instead of them, and modifying the sound in a 

 particular manner, he contrived to deceive the ear by a 

 tolerable resemblance of these letters. 



* Had M. Kempelen known the modern discovery of giving 

 caoutchouc any degree of softness, by mixing it "with molasses or 

 sugar, which is always absorbing moisture from the atmosphere, he 

 might have obtained a still more perfect imitation of the human 

 organs. 



