VOCAL ORGANS. 227 



to prove that it is both a wind and a stringed 

 instrument at the same time. The voice, he remarks, 

 becomes stronger, fuller, and passes from the acute to 

 the grave, as the orifice of the windpipe enlarges 

 with the progress of age ; and it remains always 

 weaker and sharper in women, who have the orifice 

 nearly a third smaller than men. The tension or re- 

 laxation, however, of the vocal chords may perhaps 

 enable them to execute in a given time vibrations 

 more or less rapid, in such a manner that if the air, 

 expelled from the lungs in breathing, strike upon 

 them in a state of tension, produced by the action of 

 the muscles, the voice will be shrill, clear, and piercing; 

 whereas it would be grave, if the vocal chords were 

 relaxed. 



M. Ferrein's comparison of the voice to a violin 

 has been objected to from the consideration, that in 

 order to perform the office of vibrating strings, the 

 vocal chords ought to be dry, tense, and insulated, 

 the three-fold condition required for the production 

 of sound in stringed instruments. But notwithstand- 

 ing the incompleteness of their resemblance to strings, 

 the vocal chords, like the vibrating bodies, serving 

 as mouth-pieces to wind instruments, such as the 

 reed and oboe, the mouth-hole of flutes, and the lips 

 themselves in the horn, do riot the less contribute 

 to the formation and varied inflexions of vocal sound. 



So far as we are able tp judge, the organ in 

 question (Larynx) represents a reeded wind-instru- 

 ment with a double plate, the tones of which are 

 more acute as the plates are shortened, and more 

 grave the longer they become. Although this ana- 

 logy, however, is generally correct, it does not neces- 

 sarily follow that it is in every part complete. The 

 common reeds of instruments, in fact, are composed 

 of rectangular plates fixed on one side, and free on 

 the other three. la the vocal organ, on the other 



