The Sounds of the Consonants. S9 



arranged in pairs ; in the word " mole/' pronounced in a 

 deliberate way but without dwelling unnecessarily on the 

 syllable, there are about ninety of these pairs of vibrations 

 to make up the vowel sound. 



%m or # ^ or ^>^ 



The long sound of u or oo as in " roof" consists of the fun- 

 damental note strengthened by its third partial, that is if the 

 vowel be spoken on the note C, there will be added to this a 

 series of vibrations corresponding to the G of the octaveabove. 

 The marks produced consist of a series of pear-shaped dots 

 closely contiguous, the broad end representing the place 

 where the fundamental is reinforced by its second harmonic, 

 the narrow end representing the secondary smaller vibrations. 



In the word " roof," pronounced with moderate rapidity, 

 there are between forty and fifty of these impressions to 

 represent the vowel sound. 



The vowel a, as in "far/' consists of the fundamental 

 note strengthened by both, the second and third partials; 

 hence its phonograms partake of the characters both of o 

 and of u. A slightly pear-shaped dot is followed after a 

 definite interval by a much smaller dot. In the word " far" 

 it takes from 150 to 170 of these pairs to give the vowel 

 sounds. 



The sound " awe" has altogether four partials, the funda- 

 mental tone together with its three first harmonics; its 

 phonogram seems to consist of two pear-shaped dots of which 

 the second is slightly less than the first. 



The remaining vowels I have made no efibrt to analyse, 

 but their phonograms, so far as I can make out, are — 



e ^^ ^^ 



It is plain, then, that while music can be produced by 

 simply reproducing the fundamental vibration we can hope 



