BARON CUVIER. 81 



own feelings ; the reason why the power of 

 uttering those delicious tones which captivate 

 and soothe us into harmony, those impassioned 

 sounds which cheat us into an entire forgetfiil- 

 ness of aught but themselves ; those accents of 

 fury which frighten us to agony, or those grave 

 and calm communications of the mind, are only 

 given to man ; are all there, and wonder succeeds 

 to wonder, leaving it difficult for the stranger to 

 decide in which room he finds most interest. 

 That part of the human frame from which w^e 

 suffer most, the teeth, and dentition, in all its 

 stages, and in all animals gifted with it, are laid 

 open to his viewj with the important characters 

 tliey afford for classification, and the progress 

 made from the concealment of the tooth in its 

 socket at tlie birth of the infant, to the filling up 

 of the empty sockets into one sohd mass, in the 

 aged person. Close to human teeth are the 



celebrated anatomist present exclaimed, that M. Cuvier had 

 been wrong in stating, that physiologists had not yet agreed 

 concerning the mechanism of the human voice, which some 

 compared to a wind, and others to a stringed instrument ; 

 for that this question was now decided in favour of the wind 

 instrument. " You are deceived," involuntarily cried another 

 equally learned anatomist ; " it is a stringed instrument." 

 This second observation caused a general smile, for it proved, 

 most unexpectedly, the truth of M. Cuvier's assertion. 



