June 13, 1878] 



NATURE 



169 



quite the same statement as saying that when that vowel is 

 spoken at all pitches the same cavity is employed. 



2. Whether the mouth-cavities for given vowels are supposed 

 to differ phonetically only in respect of pitch of maximum 

 resonance.. Helmholtz states clearly that in respect of their 

 pitch of maximum resonance they are different, but he does not 

 clearly say whether or no any other differences are essential. 

 There are passages which seem to show that he considers that 

 any resonator of the required pitch (whether in the least like 

 the mouth in shape or material) would answer as well, or nearly 

 as well, as the special mouth-cavity for the production of a given 

 vowel. On the other hand it is at least conceivable that the cavity 

 for, say, o may be very different from that for a in other respects 

 than simply in the pitch of maximum resonance. As to this we 

 find no statement in the " Tonempfindungen." 



In fine we do not see that Prof. Helmholtz, although he has 

 largely added to our knowledge concerning vowels, has laid 

 down any law by which, given the pitch at which any one vowel 

 is to be spoken, the reinforcement of its constituent tones could 

 be even roughly predicted. This prediction could, however, be 

 roughly made upon the constant-cavity theory, and has been 

 made by Mr. Ellis in his valuable additions to the translation of 

 Helmholtz's work. Prof. Helmholtz seems to do little more than 

 tell us the constituents of a series of vowels sung or said on two 

 notes of one scale, coupled with one peculiarity and in some 

 cases two peculiarities of the resonance cavity. He has avoided 

 all general conclusions except that quoted above, which states 

 that the vowel peculiarity depends chiefly on the absolute, and 

 not on the relative pitch of the partials. 



In our next communication we hope to be able to state how 

 far the information we have derived by means of the phonograph 

 contradicts, supports, or supplements the above theories. 



Edinbiurgh, May 29 Fleeming Jenkin 

 ^ J. A. EWING 



Extinct and Recent Irish Mammals 



I BEG to thank Prof. Leith Adams for his criticism, in 

 Nature, vol. xviii., p, 141, of my "Preliminary Treatise on 

 the Relation of the Pleistocene Animals to those now living 

 in Eiurope" {Palceon. Soc, 1878), in which, from the nature 

 of the work, it is impossible that mistakes should not be. I 

 cannot, however, plead guilty to some of the mistakes which 

 are placed to my credit: — i. That "the Irish elk is placed 

 among the pre-historic mammals in consequence of its presence 

 in the peat-bogs of England, Scotland, and Ireland." What I 

 wrote (p. 6) was that the presence of the extinct Irish elk in the 

 peat -bogs, which are of well -ascertained pre-historic age, renders 

 it impossible to accept Sir Charles Lyell's definition of the 

 term recent, in which no extinct species are stated to occur. 



Of course the Irish elk, as Prof. Leith Adams remarks, has long 

 been known to be met with, almost universally, in the lacustrine 

 marls underlying the peat, and it is thus described in p. 27 of 

 Mr. Sanford's and my own Introduction [Palcson. Soc, 1866). 

 I do not know of its occurrence anywhere in peat, but at the 

 bottom of peat-bogs, to which the bones of animals suffocated 

 in the peat in all probability gravitate. It seems to me very 

 unlikely that all the remains at the bottom of peat-bogs belong 

 to a period before the peat was accumidated. 



2. I have never held, and still less to my knowledge printed, 

 that "man and Irish elk, reindeer, mammoth, horse, and bear, 

 were contemporaneous in Ireland." Evidence of palaeolithic 

 man, the contemporary of the mammoth in Ireland, is, so far as 

 I know, altogether wanting. If Prof. Leith Adams will kindly 

 write me a reference to any such statement of mine it shall be 

 corrected at once. 



My list of Irish animals, which merely purports to give the 

 principal historic mammalia, does not profess to give all the 

 mammalia, which will doubtless be fully treated in Prof. Leith 

 Adams' promised work. W. EoYD Dawkins 



Owens College, Manchester, June 9 



Alternate Vision 

 Mr. Galton's remark (Nature, vol. xviii. p. 98), that 

 "sometimes the image seen by the left eye prevails over that 

 seen by the right, and vice versd," leads me to describe a curious 

 defect in my own eyesight, which in a different way confirms 

 what he says. While my right eye is fairly long-sighted, my 

 left eye is very short-sighted. For instance, the focal distance 



of my right eye for your leader type is 18 inches, and for the 

 left eye only 8^ inches. For your letter type the focal distance 

 for the one is 16 inches, and for the other 6| inches. This is 

 by the light of a Duplex lamp, and by focal distance, I mean the 

 distance at which I can see distinctly. The result of this in- 

 equality in my two eyes is that the right — or long-sighted one — 

 involuntarily closes when I read, and I am not aware of its being 

 shut, except when some one who is a stranger to the peculiarity 

 calls attention to it. During the day, however, in looking about 

 both eyes are generally open, though when I look intently at a 

 distant view, I find the short-sighted eye shuts occasionally. 

 But in a general way both eyes are open, and I have two distinct 

 images presented to my brain, one blurred and indistinct, even 

 for faces a yard distant, and the other clearly defined, I 

 believe, to the usual distances. How is it that my brain or mind 

 rejects the blurred image and chooses the distinct one, so that- 1 

 see everything perfectly clearly. If I get a piece of dust in the 

 good eye, or close it, I immediately see the bliured image, 

 and if this take place in the street, it causes a painful 

 degree of confusion as to distances, &c., so that I am 

 often brought to a standstill by such an occurrence. That 

 both images really are presented to the brain I know. For 

 instance, in travelling by train I frequently amuse myself by 

 placing my eyes so that the short-sighted eye sees a portion of a 

 scene through the window, without the good eye being able to 

 see it. Then I see the blurred image only ; but as the train 

 moves the blurred is replaced by the bright one, as the good eye 

 gets to work. The blurred image always appears at a higher 

 level than the other, and it is the same when I shut my good 

 eye for a moment and look at the fire with my bad one. On 

 reopening the good one the blurred fire appears slightly above 

 the bright one, and the latter almost instantly drives the indis- 

 tinct image away — like a dissolving view. Things appear, as a 

 rule, much flatter to me than to people who enjoy binocular 

 vision. I know this because I have a pair of spectacles so 

 arranged as to equalise my sights. When I put them on, objects 

 like trees put on a delightful fulness and roundness to which I 

 am usually quite a stranger, and the effect is most charming. I 

 may add that two of my brothers have a similar defect of vision. 

 May 31 J. I. R. 



The Eskimo at Paris 



I HAVE read with great interest in vol. xviii. p. 16 of your re- 

 nowned journal the article concerning the Eskimo, the exhibition 

 of whom in Paris, &c., has recently made so great a sensation. 



Unfortunately, it seems to me, the writer of the article, M. 

 A. Bordier, has been incorrectly informed with regard to the 

 introduction of these people. It is not to Mr. Geoffrey St. Hilaire, 

 the director of the Paris Jardin d'Acclimatation, but to M. Charles 

 Hagenbeck, the well-known and intelligent dealer in wild 

 animals of our town, to whom science is indebted for the intro- 

 duction both of the Eskimo, the Hamran and other types of the 

 different tribes of Nubia, and the Laplanders. 



I should be much obliged to you if you would kindly insert the 

 above correction in an early number of your journal. 



Hamburg, May 28 J. D. E. Schmeltz 



The Telephone 



Having seen a paragraph in Nature communicated by Mr. 

 Severn, of Newcastle, New South Wales, describing a method 

 of using a telephone to enable deaf persons to hear, I have tried 

 the experiment in the manner Mr. Severn describes — by fastening 

 a string to the parchment diaphragm of a simple telephone made 

 of wood, and carrying this string round the forehead of the 

 deaf person, who clasps the string with both hands and presses 

 them over his ears. The experiment in this way was partially 

 successful ; the sound of the voice was always heard, and some 

 words were distinguished. Afterwards I fastened a single string 

 to the telephone and got the deaf person to hold the string be- 

 tween his teeth. He then heard every word distinctly, even when 

 spoken in a low tone of voice at the whole length of the room. 



63, Strand, W.C. John Browning 



Till now I have looked in vain for any account in Nature 

 of experiments with the telephone or phonoscope, inserted in the 

 circuit of a selenium (galvanic) element (see Nature, vol. xvii. 

 p. 312). 



One is inclined to think that by exposing the selenium to light, 



