January 3, 1890.] 



SCIENCE. 



I therefore decided to return, trusting all the time that at some 

 future camp a better opportunity for making an ascent would pre- 

 sent itself, and the summit be reached. Across this ravine was a 

 Ijare, rocky peak, very clearly defined, and known to us as the 

 south-west of the Twin Cones. The upper part of this was devoid 

 ■of vegetation, the steep beds of rock only allowing a few grasses 

 and heaths in one or two spots to exist. 



The greatest altitude reached by us, after being worked out and 

 all corrections applied, was 10,677 ^eet above the sea. The alti- 

 tude of the snow-peak above this would probably be about 6,000 

 feet, making the mountain, say, 16,600 feet high. This, though, is 

 not the highest peak in the Ruanzori cluster. With the aid of the 

 'field-glass, f could make out the form of the mountain-top perfectly. 

 The extreme top of the peak is crowned with an irregular mass of 

 jagged and precipitous rock, and has a distinct crater-like form. 

 I could see, through a gap in the near side, a corresponding rim or 

 edge on the farther, of the same formation and altitude. From this 

 •crown of rock, the big peak slopes to the eastward at a slope of 

 about 25°, until shut out from view by an intervening peak; but to 

 the west the slope is much steeper. Of the snow, the greater mass 

 lay on that slope directly nearest us, covering the slope wherever 

 its inclination was not too great. (The largest bed of snow would 

 •cover a space measuring about 600 by 300 feet, and of such depth 

 that in only two spots did the black rock crop out above its sur- 

 face. Smaller patches of snow extended well down into the 

 ravine.) The height from the lowest snow to the summit of the 

 peak would be about 1,200 feet or 1,000 feet. To the east-north- 

 east our horizon was bounded by the spur, which, starting directly 

 behind our main camp, and mounting abruptly, takes a curve in a 

 'horizontal plane, and centres on to the snow-peak. Again, that 

 «pur which lay south of us also radiated from the two highest 

 .peaks. This would seem to be the general form of the mountain ; 

 ■namely, that the large spurs radiate from the snow-peaks as a cen- 

 tre, and spread out to the plains below. This formation on the 

 west side of the mountain would cause the streams to start from a 

 ■centre, and flow on, gradually separating from each other, until 

 they reach the plains below. There they turn to the west-north- 

 west, or trace their courses along the bottom spurs of the range, 

 -and run into the Semliki River, and on to the Albert Nyanza. Of 

 the second snow-peak which we had seen on former occasions, I 

 •could see nothing, owing to the Twin Cones intervening. This 

 peak is merely the termination, I should think, of the snowy range, 

 we saw when at Kavalli's, and has a greater elevation, if so, than 

 the peak we endeavored to ascend. Many things go to show that 

 the existence of these peaks is due to volcanic causes. The great- 

 est proof that this is so lies in the numbers of conical peaks clus- 

 'tering round the central mass and on the western side. These 

 minor cones have been formed by the central volcano getting 

 •blocked in its crater, owing to the pressure of its gases not being 

 -sufficient to throw out the rock and lava from its interior ; and 

 •consequently the gases, seeking for weak spots, had burst through 

 the earth's crust, and thus been the means of forming these minor 

 ■cones that now exist. Of animal life on the mountain, we saw al- 

 most nothing. That game of some sort exists, is plain from the 

 number of pitfalls we saw on the road-sides, and from the fact of 

 ■our finding small nooses in the natives' huts, such as those used for 

 taking ground game. We heard the cries of an ape in a ravine, 

 ■and saw several dull grayish-brown birds like stonechats ; but be- 

 yond these, nothing. 



We have found blueberries and blackberries at an altitude of 

 10,000 feet and over, and I have been able to hand over to the 

 Pacha some specimens for his collections, the generic names of 

 which he has kindly given me, and which are attached below. 

 That I could not manage to reach the snow, and bring back some 

 as evidence of our work, I regret very much ; but to have pro- 

 ceeded onwards to the mountain under the conditions in which we 

 were situated, 1 felt would be worse than useless, and, though all 

 of us were keen and ready to go on, f gave the order to return. I 

 then read off the large aneroid, and found the hand stood at 19"- 

 .900. I set the index-pin directly opposite to the hand, and we 

 started down hill. At 3 p.m. on the 7th I reached you, it having 

 taken four hours and a half of marching from the Twin Cones. 

 The following are the generic names of the plants collected by me. 



Emin Pacha has kindly furnished them. i. Clematis ; 2. Viola; 

 3. Hibiscus; 4. Impatiens ; 5. Tephrosia ; 6. Elycina ; 7. Rit- 

 biis ; 8. Begojiia ; 9. Peticedanutn ; 10. G7iaphali7im ; 11. Heli- 

 chrysum; 12. Senecio ; 13. Sonchus ; 14. Vacciniwii ; i'^. Erica 

 arborea ; 16. Landolphia ; 17. Heliotr opium ; 18. Lantana ; 

 19. Moschosma ; 20. Lissochilus ; 21. Draccena ; 22. Luzula ; 

 1-i. Carex : 24. Anthesteria ; 25. Adiantum ; 26. Pellcea ; 27. 

 Pteris aquilina ; 28. Aspletiium ; 29. Aspidium ; 30. Polypo- 

 dium ; 31. Lycopodium ; 32. Selaginella ; 33. Marc/taniia ; 34. 

 Pannelia ; 35. Usnea ; 36. Tree fern ; 37. One fern ; 38. One 

 Polypodium. The generic names of the last three are unknown. 



PHONETICS.' 



I CONGRATULATE the Modern Language Association on the 

 establishment of a section which is as indispensable to language as 

 the character of the Prince of Denmark is to the play of Hamlet. 

 Language lives in sound ; and the study of modern languages is 

 the study of the spoken tongues. 



I was honored by appointment to the presidency of this section, 

 not in virtue of any linguistic attainments, but simply in recogni- 

 tion of my long and minute study of practical phonetics. At this 

 the first meeting of our Phonetic Section, a few words on that sub- 

 ject will not, I trust, be unwelcome. 



We constantly hear of the difficulty in pronouncing a foreign 

 language, and especially of the difficulty of our own language to 

 foreigners ;- but the reason of the difficulty has not been sufficiently 

 recognized, namely, that learners have no initiatory phonetic train- 

 ing. They try to imitate speech in the mass; and they fail, be- 

 cause, after our earliest years, the faculty of imitation is no longer 

 an instinct, as it is in childhood. The child unfailingly adjusts its 

 organs of speech to the production of whatever sound it is accus- 

 tomed to hear, and no difficulty is experienced in the process. The 

 youth and the man cannot do so, however, because their organs 

 are already set for the pronunciation of one class of sounds, and 

 they cannot readily alter the adjustment to suit the production of 

 other varieties ; that is, they cannot form new sounds in the verbal 

 combinations of speech, but (and this is the point I wish to bring 

 out) they can, or they can be readily taught to, produce any sound 

 by itself. This power is a prerequisite for the certain result of fa- 

 cility in combining the new sound with others as fluently as by 

 a speaker " to the manner born ; " for what is called combination 

 is in reality merely rapid sequence. 



I have known persons who had long been familiar with Welsh 

 speakers, utterly unable to pronounce the sound of // in a word, 

 but they have been taught in a few seconds to give the element its 

 true native effect, by itself, and, after brief exercise, to give it and 

 an associated vowel the rapidity of sequence which is called com- 

 bination. We all know speakers who cannot pronounce the Eng- 

 lish w in we; but we do not any of us know a single such speaker 

 who cannot at once be made to pronounce the element by itself, 

 and within a few minutes to give it and the succeeding vowel the 

 necessary rapidity of sequence to convert w-e into we. On the 

 same principle, the German w, which English imitators pronounce 

 V, can be readily acquired as an elementary sound by any person, 

 and then syllabically connected with vowels exactly as by native 

 speakers. 



The sound of th is another shibboleth to those who do not pos- 

 sess it in their vernacular. Habit and association have fixed the 

 false method acquired in early undirected attempts, and the wretched 

 mispronunciation is continued year after year. Yet this supposed 

 difficult sound can be pronounced as an element almost at the first 

 effort by any of these speakers, and its combination in syllables be 

 afterwards mastered with certainty. 



The only difficult part of English pronunciation is in the applica- 

 tion of what is called "accent," which gives a definiteness and 

 stress to some one out of any group of syllables, and a feebleness 

 and indefiniteness to all the other syllables in the group. Accent 

 (or syllabic light and shade) is the most marked characteristic of 

 English utterance, and generally the last to be acquired by a for- 

 eigner ; yet there is no real difficulty in mastering even this accen- 



^ Address by Dr. A. Melville Bell before the Modern Language Association, at the 

 first session of the Phonetic Section. 



