May 4, 1888,] 



SCIENTIFIC NEWS. 



411 



They believed the constriction and expansion of the 

 larynx to be very fatiguing, and attended with hoarse- 

 ness after lengthened exertion. They observed that M. 

 Saint Gille appeared fatigued before the end of his ex- 

 hibition, and lost some degree of his power to create the 

 illusion; but each exertion was followed by irritation 

 and a slight cough, and that when he was enrhiime, 

 suffering from a cold, he had great difficulty in speaking 

 en ventriloque. 



M. de la Chappelle and the other academicians unite 

 in their refutation of Conrad Amman's theory, which 

 asserts that ventriloquism depends upon articulation 

 during inspiration. 



A very skilful ventriloquist and mimic, M. Alexandre, 

 visited this country in 1823-24, and was the subject of 

 careful investigation in Edinburgh, to which he sub- 



with a man supposed to be suspended by it ; the voice 

 of the man approaching nearer and nearer, yard by 

 yard, until suddenly when near the window he dropped 

 the rope, imitated a crash and the groans of a dying 

 man below. The rope and the hauling fixed the atten- 

 tion towards the required direction. 



The antiquity of ventriloquism and of the idea of speak- 

 ing from the stomach are remarkable. The Egyptians, 

 Assyrians, Jews, and Greeks record cases of familiar 

 spirits, residing in the stomach, and speaking from 

 there. The evil name for such demon Ob (plural Obotli) 

 is translated in the Septuagint by the word engastri- 

 mathos, and in the Vulgate ventriloquus. The witch of 

 Endor is called Engastrimethon. St. Chrysostom and 

 iEcumeneus both speak of Diviners called Engastrimandu 

 and ancient treatises on the subject are still extant. 



Moving the Brighton Beach Hotel. 



mitted willingly and candidly. His testimony was 

 almost identical Vvith that of Baron Mengen and M. Saint 

 Gille, excepting that he confessed his inability to produce 

 the labial consonants without moving the lips. The 

 academicians found that this was the case with M. Saint 

 Gille. M. Alexandre ridiculed the old stomach theory, 

 stating that he had neither tongue nor teeth there, and 

 also asserted positively that he did not speak during 

 inspiration, adding that when he spoke en ventriloque, he 

 was not aware that he breathed at all. 



He further stated that the idea of " throwing the 

 voice" in a certain direction is absurd. The ventriloquist 

 first directs the attention of his hearers to the direction 

 from which the sound is to come, and then imitates a 

 sound due to the distance of the spot ; as when, for 

 example, at Prince Metternich's Hotel in Vienna, he 

 hung a rope out of a window to which a weight was at- 

 tached, then hauled up the rope and gradually conversing 



MOVING THE BRIGHTON BEACH 

 HOTEL. 



/^N tormer occasions we have referred to the proposed 

 ^-"^ moving of this hotel, and in our issue of April 13 we 

 announced that the project had been successfully carried 

 out. We are now able to give our readers further par- 

 ticulars of this engineering feat, which we take 

 from a recent number of Scientific American. 

 For many months there has been a marked 

 tendency on the part of the water to wear away the 

 sandy beach upon which the building was erected. During 

 the past winter this tendency increased, and the water 

 made its way under the hotel, and it was evident that, 

 unless some preventive measures were taken, the house 

 would be undermined and carried away. 



An adjoining building, of much smaller size, called 

 The PaviUon, had already been moved several times, as 



