THE SPEECH OF MONKEYS. Ill 



then formed the belief , and have had no cause since 

 to recede from it, that the vocal powers were cor- 

 rectly measured by the gnathic index, that the 

 mind and voice were commensurate, and that as 

 the cranio-facial angle widens the voice degrades 

 in quality and scope. In man I find the highest 

 vocal type, and just as we descend in the cranial 

 scale, the vocal type descends into sounds less 

 flexible, less capable, and less musical. These 

 deductions apply only to mammals ; among birds, 

 insects, etc., a different order may prevail. 



The records of the lions show some strange 

 features in the construction of sound, and when 

 analyzed on the phonograph present some novel 

 effects. The sound as a whole appears to be 

 broken into broad waves or pulsations, but on 

 analyzing it the fundamental tones somewhat 

 resemble the sounds produced by drawing a mal- 

 let rapidly across the keyboard of a xylophone, 

 and are characterized by a peculiar resonance, 

 something like the tremulous vibrations of a thin 

 glass containing a small quantity of water. 

 Each of these separate fundamental sounds or 

 sound-units, as they appear to be, can be further 

 reduced to still smaller vibrations ; and the re- 

 sult suggests that the fundamental sounds them- 



