198 THE SPEECH OF MONKEYS. 



thing suspicious occurs, the monkey will warn his friend 

 in the mirror ; he may also listen to the tales of woe 

 uttered by the phonongraph and try to return some 

 words of consolation, or be on the lookout if the voice 

 from the horn gives a sound of alarm. 



On every cylinder Mr. Garner carefully marked the 

 accompanying circumstances, date, place, kind of the 

 experiment and so on, for instance : New York, Dec. 16. 

 1891. Central Park collection. Cage of Rhesus, Capu- 

 cin monkeys ; cries of temper. 



After having got a number of good records Mr. Gar- 

 ner took them to the labratory or study and carefully 

 examined them. Then at night, when all was still and 

 quiet, he listened to the sounds. Often it was necessary 

 to turn the same cylinder for hours on a stretch. He 

 could not always isolate one monkey, as often many 

 sounds are imparted to the same cylinder, but every 

 sound was analyzed. The ingenious construction of the 

 phonograph allowed him to do so in the easiest manner. 

 If he had a good clear record of some sound while the 

 cylinder of the phonograph had been revolving at its 

 highest speed, it was only necessary when reproducing 

 the sound, to reduce that speed to the slowest rate at 

 which he could obtain an audible vibration. Thus he 

 lengthened the sound waves until he could get a very 

 correct idea of the fundamental sound, and could finally 

 detect the slightest shades of variation in them. Thus 

 Mr. Garner was rewarded with an almost faultless 

 analysis of the sound ; at the same time he could trace 

 out the defects in his own efforts to imitate them. For 

 this was his final purpose, not only to understand that 

 language, but also to acquire it himself so as to be able 

 to talk to the monkeys and to be understood by them. 

 So this never-tiring investigator went to work to learn 

 himself what sounds the phonograph presented to him, 

 in the beginning with failures only, of course, as the 



154 



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