eVbfcs to Inlroductorij Lecture, Ixi 



*« On the organs of speech of the ouran outang*** But as 

 tliese animals cannot speak, the expression should have heen 

 voice and not <* speech." — Dr. Tyson of London who was 

 himself an accurate dissector, had puhlished in 1G99 " ourang 

 outang, or the anatomy of a pigmy compared with a monkey, 

 an ape and man," 4to. without discovering the difference he- 

 tween their organs of speech and voice. Albinus, Martini 

 and even D'Aubenton are also silent on the striking construc- 

 tion of this organ in apes. The merit of professor Camper 

 was therefore the greater, for it unravelled the mystery of 

 their incapacity of speaking, although possessed of organs, 

 (as was supposed) equally well adapted to the end, as those 

 of man. Mr. White confirms professor Camper's statement, 

 and exhibited a preparation of the membranous bag of the 

 monkey to the Manchester Society. Account of the regu- 

 lar gradation of man, by C. White, p. 27 — London 1799. 

 There can be no doubt of the confirmation, nor any difficul- 

 ty in accounting from it, for the want of speech in ourans, 

 apes, &c. Lord Montboddo labours hard to prove, with 

 Rousseau, the humanity of the ouran outang, and accounts 

 for the difference between the result of Tyson's and Camper's 

 dissections of ourans, by the circumstance of the first having 

 examined one from Angola, and the other those from 

 Borneo. See Origin and Progress of Language, vol. 1. 

 p. 344: and Ancient Metaphysics, vol. 3. p. 44. No anatomist 

 or natural historian who grounds his distinctions of animals 

 upon anatomy will attend to this argument. 



JVote 39. 

 B'Aubenton, by the dissection of a camel for BufTon's na- 

 tural history, had many years since actually found a consi- 

 derable quantity of water in the cells of the stomach, though 

 tlie animal had been dead ten days. The water was clear, 

 almost insipid, and drinkable. He therefore assents to the 

 assertion of travellers, that camels are killed for tJie water 

 in their stomachs. Pcrrault, who dissected a camel in 1676, 

 Mem. dc I'Acad. de Scicn. torn. 3, was of the same opinion^ 



