1 84 THE SPEECH OF MONKEYS. 



lowest tribes of men, we find the consonants in- 

 crease in number and complexity as we ascend 

 the scale of speech. To this, perhaps, is due 

 the fact that the negroes now found in the 

 United States, after a sojourn of two hundred 

 years with the white race on this continent, are 

 unable to utter the sounds of "th," "thr," and 

 other double consonants. The former of these 

 they pronounce " d" if breathing and "t" if as- 

 pirate. The latter they pronounce like "trw" 

 or "tww." The sound of "v" they usually pro- 

 nounce "b," while "r" resembles "w" or "rw" 

 when initial, but as a final sound is usually sup- 

 pressed. They have a marked tendency to omit 

 auxiliary and final sounds, and in all departures 

 from the higher types of speech tend back to 

 ancestral forms. 



I believe that if we could apply the rule of per- 

 spectives and throw our vanishing-point far back 

 beyond the chasm that separates man from his 

 simian prototype, we would find one unbroken 

 outline tangent to every circle of life from man 

 to protozoa, in language, mind, and matter. 



