Chapter XII: Part 12

To reproduce artificially sounds resembling those of the consonants in speech, we must for a moment interrupt, wholly for explosive and partially for continuous consonant sounds, the passage of air through a reed pipe. Tyndall thus describes an experiment of this kind in which an imperfect imitation of the sound of the letter “m” was obtained—an imitation only requiring, to render it perfect, as I have myself experimentally verified, attention to the consideration respecting liquids pointed out in the preceding paragraph. “Here,” says Tyndall, describing the experiment as conducted during a lecture, “is a free reed fixed in a frame, but without any pipe associated with it, mounted on the acoustic bellows. When air is urged through the orifice, it speaks in this forcible manner. I now fix upon the frame of the reed a pyramidal pipe; you notice a change in the clang, and, by pushing my flat hand over the open end of the pipe, the similarity between the sounds produced and those of the human voice is unmistakable. Holding the palm of my hand over the end of the pipe, so as to close it altogether, and then raising my hand twice in quick succession, the word ‘mamma’ is heard as plainly as if it were uttered by an infant. For this pyramidal tube I now substitute a shorter one, and with it make the same experiment. The ‘mamma’ now heard is exactly such as would be uttered by a child with a stopped nose. Thus, by associating with a vibrating reed a suitable pipe, we can impart to the sound of the reed the qualities of the human voice.” The “m” obtained in these experiments was, however, imperfect. To produce an “m” sound such as an adult would utter without a “stopped nose,” all that is necessary is to make a small opening (experiment readily determines the proper size and position) in the side of the pyramidal pipe, so that, as in the natural utterance of this liquid, the emission of air is not altogether interrupted.

I witnessed in 1874 some curious illustrations of the artificial production of vocal sounds, at the Stevens Institute, Hoboken, N.J., where the ingenious Professor Mayer (who will have, I trust, a good deal to say about the scientific significance of telephonic and phonographic experiments before long) has acoustic apparatus, including several talking-pipes. By suitably moving his hand on the top of some of these pipes, he could make them speak certain words with tolerable distinctness, and even utter short sentences. I remember the performance closed with the remarkably distinct utterance, by one profane pipe, of the words euphemistically rendered by Mark Twain (in his story of the Seven Sleepers, I think), “Go thou to Hades!”

Now, the speaking diaphragm in the telephone, as in the phonograph, presently to be described, must reproduce not only all the varieties of sound-wave corresponding to vowel sounds, with their intermixtures of the fundamental tone and its overtones and their inflexions or sliding changes of pitch, but also all the effects produced on the receiving diaphragm by those interruptions, complete or partial, of aerial emission which correspond to the pronunciation of the various consonant sounds. It might certainly have seemed hopeless, from all that had been before known or surmised respecting the effects of aerial vibrations on flexible diaphragms, to attempt to make a diaphragm speak artificially—in other words, to make the movements of all parts of it correspond with those of a diaphragm set in vibration by spoken words—by movements affecting only its central part. It is in the recognition of the possibility of this, or rather in the discovery of the fact that the movements of a minute portion of the middle of a diaphragm regulate the vibratory and other movements of the entire diaphragm, that the great scientific interest of Professor Graham Bell’s researches appears to me to reside.

It may be well, in illustration of the difficulties with which formerly the subject appeared to be surrounded, to describe the results of experiments which preceded, though they can scarcely be said to have led up to, the invention of artificial ways of reproducing speech. I do not now refer to experiments like those of Kratzenstein of St. Petersburg, and Von Kempelen of Vienna, in 1779, and the more successful experiments by Willis in later years, but to attempts which have been made to obtain material records of the aerial motions accompanying the utterance of spoken words. The most successful of these attempts was that made by Mr. W. H. Barlow. His purpose was “to construct an instrument which should record the pneumatic actions” accompanying the utterance of articulated sounds “by diagrams, in a manner analogous to that in which the indicator-diagram of a steam-engine records the action of the engine.” He perceived that the actual aerial pressures involved being very small and very variable, and the succession of impulses and changes of pressure being very rapid, it was necessary that the moving parts should be very light, and that the movement and marking should be accomplished with as little friction as possible. The instrument he constructed consisted of a small speaking-trumpet about four inches long, having an ordinary mouthpiece connected to a tube half an inch in diameter, the thin end of which widened out so as to form an aperture of 2¼ inches diameter. This aperture was covered with a membrane of goldbeater’s skin, or thin gutta-percha. A spring carrying a marker was made to press against the membrane with a slight initial pressure, to prevent as far as possible the effects of jarring and consequent vibratory action. A light arm of aluminium was connected with the spring, and held the marker; and a continuous strip of paper was made to pass under the marker in the manner employed in telegraphy. The marker consisted of a small, fine sable brush, placed in a light tube of glass one-tenth of an inch in diameter, the tube being rounded at the lower end, and pierced with a hole about one-twentieth of an inch in diameter. Through this hole the tip of the brush projected, and was fed by colour put into the glass tube by which it was held. It should be added that, to provide for the escape of air passing through the speaking-trumpet, a small opening was made in the side, so that the pressure exerted upon the membrane was that due to the excess of air forced into the trumpet over that expelled through the orifice. The strength of the spring which carried the marker was so adjusted to the size of the orifice that, while the lightest pressures arising under articulation could be recorded, the greatest pressures should not produce a movement exceeding the width of the paper.

“It will be seen,” says Mr. Barlow, “that in this construction of the instrument the sudden application of pressure is as suddenly recorded, subject only to the modifications occasioned by the inertia, momentum, and friction of the parts moved. But the record of the sudden cessation of pressure is further affected by the time required to discharge the air through the escape-orifice. Inasmuch, however, as these several effects are similar under similar circumstances, the same diagram should always be obtained from the same pneumatic action when the instrument is in proper adjustment; and this result is fairly borne out by the experiments.”

The defect of the instrument consisted in the fact that it recorded changes of pressure only; and in point of fact it seems to result, from the experiments made with it, that it could only indicate the order in which explosive, continuant, and liquid consonants succeeded each other in spoken words, the vowels being all expressed in the same way, and only one letter—the rough R, or R with a burr—being always unmistakably indicated. The explosives were represented by a sudden sharp rise and fall in the recorded curve; the height of the rise depending on the strength with which the explosive is uttered, not on the nature of the consonant itself. Thus the word “tick” is represented by a higher elevation for the “t” than for the “k,” but the word “kite” by a higher elevation for the “k” than for the “t.” It is noteworthy that there is always a second smaller rise and fall after the first chief one, in the case of each of the explosives. This shows that the membrane, having first been forcibly distended by the small aerial explosion accompanying the utterance of such a consonant, sways back beyond the position where the pressure and the elasticity of the membrane would (for the moment) exactly balance, and then oscillates back again over that position before returning to its undistended condition. Sometimes a third small elevation can be recognized, and when an explosive is followed by a rolling “r” several small elevations are seen. The continuous consonants produce elevations less steep and less high; aspirates and sibilants give rounded hills. But the results vary greatly according to the position of a consonant; and, so far as I can make out from a careful study of the very interesting diagrams accompanying Mr. Barlow’s paper, it would be quite impossible to define precisely the characteristic records even of each order of consonantal sounds, far less of each separate sound.

We could readily understand that the movement of the central part of the diaphragm in the telephone should give much more characteristic differences for the various sounds than Barlow’s logograph. For if we imagine a small pointer attached to the centre of the face of the receiving diaphragm while words are uttered in its neighbourhood, the end of that pointer would not only move to and fro in a direction square to the face of the diaphragm, as was the case with Barlow’s marker, but it would also sway round its mean position in various small circles or ovals, varying in size, shape, and position, according to the various sounds uttered. We might expect, then, that if in any way a record of the actual motions of the extremity of that small pointer could be obtained, in such sort that its displacement in directions square to the face of the diaphragm, as well as its swayings around its mean position, would be indicated in some pictorial manner, the study of such records would indicate the exact words spoken near the diaphragm, and even, perhaps, the precise tones in which they were uttered. For Barlow’s logograph, dealing with one only of the orders of motion (really triple in character), gives diagrams in which the general character of the sounds uttered is clearly indicated, and the supposed records would show much more.

But although this might, from _à priori_ considerations, have been reasonably looked for, it by no means follows that the actual results of Bell’s telephonic experiments could have been anticipated. That the movement of the central part of the diaphragm should suffice to show that such and such words had been uttered, is one thing; but that these movements should of themselves suffice, if artificially reproduced, to cause the diaphragm to reproduce these words, is another and a very different one. I venture to express my conviction that at the beginning of his researches Professor Bell can have had very little hope that any such result would be obtained, notwithstanding some remarkable experiments respecting the transmission of sound which we can _now_ very clearly perceive to point in that direction.

When, however, he had invented the telephone, this point was in effect demonstrated; for in that instrument, as we have seen, the movements of the minute piece of metal attached (at least in the earlier forms of the instrument) to the centre of the receiving membrane, suffice, when precisely copied by the similar central piece of metal in the transmitting membrane, to cause the words which produced the motions of the receiving or hearing membrane to be uttered (or seem to be uttered) by the transmitting or speaking membrane.

It was reserved, however, for Edison (of New Jersey, U.S.A., Electrical Adviser to the Western Union Telegraph Company) to show how advantage might be taken of this discovery to make a diaphragm speak, not directly through the action of the movements of a diaphragm affected by spoken words or other sounds, and therefore either simultaneously with these or in such quick succession after them as corresponds with the transmission of their effects along some line of electrical or other communication, but by the mechanical reproduction of similar movements at any subsequent time (within certain limits at present, but probably hereafter with practically unlimited extension as to time).

The following is slightly modified from Edison’s own description of the phonograph:—

The instrument is composed of three parts mainly; namely, a receiving, a recording, and a transmitting apparatus. The receiving apparatus consists of a curved tube, one end of which is fitted with a mouthpiece. The other end is about two inches in diameter, and is closed with a disc or diaphragm of exceedingly thin metal, capable of being thrust slightly outwards or vibrated upon gentle pressure being applied to it from within the tube. To the centre of this diaphragm (which is vertical) is fixed a small blunt steel pin, which shares the vibratory motion of the diaphragm. This arrangement is set on a table, and can be adjusted suitably with respect to the second part of the instrument—the recorder. This is a brass cylinder, about four inches in length and four in diameter, cut with a continuous V-groove from one end to the other, so that in effect it represents a large screw. There are forty of these grooves in the entire length of the cylinder. The cylinder turns steadily, when the instrument is in operation, upon a vertical axis, its face being presented to the steel point of the receiving apparatus. The shaft on which it turns is provided with a screw-thread and works in a screwed bearing, so that as the shaft is turned (by a handle) it not only turns the cylinder, but steadily carries it upwards. The rate of this vertical motion is such that the cylinder behaves precisely as if its groove worked in a screw-bearing. Thus, if the pointer be set opposite the middle of the uppermost part of the continuous groove at the beginning of this turning motion, it will traverse the groove continuously to its lowest part, which it will reach after forty turnings of the handle. (More correctly, perhaps, we might say that the groove continuously traverses past the pointer.) Now, suppose that a piece of some such substance as tinfoil is wrapped round the cylinder. Then the pointer, when at rest, just touches the tinfoil. But when the diaphragm is vibrating under the action of aerial waves resulting from various sounds, the pointer vibrates in such a way as to indent the tinfoil—not only to a greater or less depth according to the play of the pointer to and fro in a direction square to the face of the diaphragm, but also over a range all round its mean position, corresponding to the play of the end of the pointer around _its_ mean position. The groove allows the pressure of the pointer against the tinfoil free action. If the cylinder had no groove the dead resistance of the tinfoil, thus backed up by an unyielding surface, would stop the play of the pointer. Under the actual conditions, the tinfoil is only kept taut enough to receive the impressions, while yielding sufficiently to let the play of the pointer continue unrestrained. If now a person speaks into the receiving tube, and the handle of the cylinder be turned, the vibrations of the pointer are impressed upon the portion of the tinfoil lying over the hollow groove, and are retained by it. They will be more or less deeply marked according to the quality of the sounds emitted, and according also, of course, to the strength with which the speaker utters the sounds, and to the nature of the modulations and inflexions of his voice. The result is a message verbally imprinted upon a strip of metal. It differs from the result in the case of Barlow’s logograph, in being virtually a record in three dimensions instead of one only. The varying depth of the impressions corresponds to the varying height of the curve in Barlow’s diagrams; but there the resemblance ceases; for that was the single feature which Barlow’s logographs could present. Edison’s imprinted words show, besides varying depth of impression, a varying range on either side of the mean track of the pointer, and also—though the eye is not able to detect this effect—there is a varying rate of progression according as the end of the pointer has been swayed towards or from the direction in which, owing to the motion of the cylinder, the pointer is virtually travelling.

We may say of the record thus obtained that it is sound presented in a visible form. A journalist who has written on the phonograph has spoken of this record as corresponding to the crystallization of sound. And another who, like the former, has been (erroneously, but that is a detail) identified with myself, has said, in like fanciful vein, that the story of Baron Münchausen hearing words which had been frozen during severe cold melting into speech again, so that all the babble of a past day came floating about his ears, has been realized by Edison’s invention. Although such expressions may not be, and in point of fact are not, strictly scientific, I am not disposed, for my own part, to cavil with them. If they could by any possibility be taken _au pied de la lettre_ (and, by the way, we find quite a new meaning for this expression in the light of what is now known about vowels and consonants), there would be valid objection to their use. But, as no one supposes that Edison’s phonograph really crystallizes words or freezes sounds, it seems hypercritical to denounce such expressions as the critic of the _Telegraphic Journal_ has denounced them.

To return to Edison’s instrument.

Having obtained a material record of sounds, vocal or otherwise, it remains that a contrivance should be adopted for making this record reproduce the sounds by which it was itself formed. This is effected by a third portion of the apparatus, the transmitter. This is a conical drum, or rather a drum shaped like a frustum of a cone, having its larger end open, the smaller—which is about two inches in diameter—being covered with paper stretched tight like the parchment of a drumhead. In front of this diaphragm is a light flat steel spring, held vertically, and ending in a blunt steel point, which projects from it and corresponds precisely with that on the diaphragm of the receiver. The spring is connected with the paper diaphragm by a silken thread, just sufficiently in tension to cause the outer face of the diaphragm to be slightly convex. Having removed the receiving apparatus from the cylinder and set the cylinder back to its original position, the transmitting apparatus is brought up to the cylinder until the steel point just rests, without pressure, in the first indentation made in the tinfoil by the point of the receiver. If now the handle is turned at the same speed as when the message was being recorded, the steel point will follow the line of impression, and will vibrate in periods corresponding to the impressions which were produced by the point of the receiving apparatus. The paper diaphragm being thus set into vibrations of the requisite kind in number, depth, and side-range, there are produced precisely the same sounds that set the diaphragm of the receiver into vibration originally. Thus the words of the speaker are heard issuing from the conical drum in his own voice, tinged with a slightly metallic or mechanical tone. If the cylinder be more slowly turned when transmitting than it had been when receiving the message, the voice assumes a base tone; if more quickly, the message is given with a more treble voice. “In the present machine,” says the account, “when a long message is to be recorded, so soon as one strip of tinfoil is filled, it is removed and replaced by others, until the communication has been completed. In using the machine for the purpose of correspondence, the metal strips are removed from the cylinder and sent to the person with whom the speaker desires to correspond, who must possess a machine similar to that used by the sender. The person receiving the strips places them in turn on the cylinder of his apparatus, applies the transmitter, and puts the cylinder in motion, when he hears his friend’s voice speaking to him from the indented metal. And he can repeat the contents of the missive as often as he pleases, until he has worn the metal through. The sender can make an infinite number of copies of his communication by taking a plaster-of-Paris cast of the original, and rubbing off impressions from it on a clean sheet of foil.”

I forbear from dwelling further on the interest and value of this noble invention, or of considering some of the developments which it will probably receive before long, for already I have occupied more space than I had intended. I have no doubt that in these days it will bring its inventor less credit, and far less material gain, than would be acquired from the invention of some ingenious contrivance for destroying many lives at a blow, bursting a hole as large as a church door in the bottom of an ironclad, or in some other way helping men to carry out those destructive instincts which they inherit from savage and brutal ancestors. But hereafter, when the representatives of the brutality and savagery of our nature are held in proper disesteem, and those who have added new enjoyments to life are justly valued, a high place in the esteem of men will be accorded to him who has answered one-half of the poet’s aspiration,

“Oh for the touch of a vanished hand,
And the sound of a voice that is still!”

* * * * *

NOTE.—Since the present paper was written, M. Aurel de Ratti has made some experiments which he regards as tending to show that there is no mechanical vibration. Thus, “when the cavities above and below the iron disc of an ordinary telephone are filled with wadding, the instrument will transmit and speak with undiminished clearness. On placing a finger on the iron disc opposite the magnet, the instrument will transmit and speak distinctly, only ceasing to act when sufficient pressure is applied to bring plate and magnet into contact. Connecting the centre of the disc by means of a short thread with an extremely sensitive membrane, no sound is given out by the latter when a message is transmitted. Bringing the iron cores of the double telephone in contact with the disc, and pressing with the fingers against the plate on the other side, a weak current from a Daniell cell produced a distinct click in the plate, and on drawing a wire from the cell over a file which formed part of the circuit, a rattling noise was produced in the instrument.” If these experiments had been made before the phonograph was invented, they would have suggested the impracticability of constructing any instrument which would do what the phonograph actually does, viz., cause sounds to be repeated by exciting a merely mechanical vibration of the central part of a thin metallic disc. But as the phonograph proves that this can actually be done, we must conclude that M. Aurel de Ratti’s experiments will not bear the interpretation he places upon them. They show, nevertheless, that exceedingly minute vibrations of probably a very small portion of the telephonic disc suffice for the distinct transmission of vocal sounds. This might indeed be inferred from the experiments of M. Demozet, of Nantes, who finds that the vibrations of the transmitting telephone are in amplitude little more than 1-2000th those of the receiving telephone.

_THE GORILLA AND OTHER APES._

About twenty-five centuries ago, a voyager called Hanno is said to have sailed from Carthage, between the Pillars of Hercules—that is, through the Straits of Gibraltar—along the shores of Africa. “Passing the Streams of Fire,” says the narrator, “we came to a bay called the Horn of the South. In the recess there was an island, like the first, having a lake, and in this there was another island full of wild men. But much the greater part of them were women, with hairy bodies, whom the interpreters called ‘Gorillas.’ Pursuing them, we were not able to take the men; they all escaped, being able to climb the precipices; and defended themselves with pieces of rock. But three women, who bit and scratched those who led them, were not willing to follow. However, having killed them, we flayed them, and conveyed the skins to Carthage; for we did not sail any further, as provisions began to fail.”[35]

In the opinion of many naturalists, the wild men of this story were the anthropoid or manlike apes which are now called gorillas, rediscovered recently by Du Chaillu. The region inhabited by the gorillas is a well-wooded country, “extending about a thousand miles from the Gulf of Guinea southward,” says Gosse; “and as the gorilla is not found beyond these limits, so we may pretty conclusively infer that the extreme point of Hanno was somewhere in this region.” I must confess these inferences seem to me somewhat open to question, and the account of Hanno’s voyage only interesting in its relation to the gorilla, as having suggested the name now given to this race of apes. It is not probable that Hanno sailed much further than Sierra Leone; according to Rennell, the island where the “wild men” were seen, was the small island lying close to Sherbro, some seventy miles south of Sierra Leone. To have reached the gorilla district after doubling Cape Verd—which is itself a point considerably south of the most southerly city founded by Hanno—he would have had to voyage a distance exceeding that of Cape Verd from Carthage. Nothing in the account suggests that the portion of the voyage, after the colonizing was completed, had so great a range. The behaviour of the “wild men,” again, does not correspond with the known habits of the gorilla. The idea suggested is that of a species of anthropoid ape far inferior to the gorilla in strength, courage, and ferocity.

The next accounts which have been regarded as relating to the gorilla are those given by Portuguese voyagers. These narratives have been received with considerable doubt, because in some parts they seem manifestly fabulous. Thus the pictures representing apes show also huge flying dragons with a crocodile’s head; and we have no reason for believing that batlike creatures like the pterodactyls of the greensand existed in Africa or elsewhere so late as the time of the Portuguese voyages of discovery. Purchas, in his history of Andrew Battell, speaks of “a kinde of great apes, if they might so bee termed, of the height of a man, but twice as bigge in feature of their limmes, with strength proportionable, hairie all over, otherwise altogether like men and women in their whole bodily shape, except that their legges had no calves.” This description accords well with the peculiarities of gorillas, and may be regarded as the first genuine account of these animals. Battell’s contemporaries called the apes so described Pongoes. It is probable that in selecting the name Pongo for the young gorilla lately at the Westminster Aquarium, the proprietors of this interesting creature showed a more accurate judgment of the meaning of Purchas’s narrative than Du Chaillu showed of Hanno’s account, in calling the great anthropoid ape of the Gulf of Guinea a gorilla.

I propose here briefly to sketch the peculiarities of the four apes which approach nearest in form to man—the gorilla, the chimpanzee, the orang-outang, and the gibbon; and then, though not dealing generally with the question of our relationship to these non-speaking (and, in some respects, perhaps, “unspeakable”) animals, to touch on some points connected with this question, and to point out some errors which are very commonly entertained on the subject.

It may be well, in the first place, to point out that the terms “ape,” “baboon,” and “monkey” are no longer used as they were by the older naturalists. Formerly the term “ape” was limited to tailless simians having no cheek-pouches, and the same number of teeth as man; the term “baboon” to short-tailed simians with dog-shaped heads; and the term “monkey,” unless used generically, to the long-tailed species. This was the usage suggested by Ray, and adopted systematically thirty or forty years ago. But it is no longer followed, though no uniform classification has been substituted for the old arrangement. Thus Mivart divides the apes into two classes—calling the first the _Simiadæ_, or Old World apes; and the second the _Cebidæ_, or New World apes. He subdivides the _Simiadæ_ into (1) the _Siminæ_, including the gorilla, chimpanzee, orang, and gibbon; (2) the _Semnopithecinæ_; and (3) the _Cynopithecinæ_; neither of which subdivisions will occupy much of our attention here, save as respects the third subdivision of the _Cynopithecinæ_, viz., the _Cynocephali_, which includes the baboons. The other great division, the _Cebidæ_, or New World apes, are for the most part very unlike the Old World apes. None of them approach the gorilla or orang-outang in size; most of them are long-tailed; and the number and arrangement of the teeth is different. The feature, however, which most naturalists have selected as the characteristic distinction between the apes of the Old World and of the New World is the position of the nostrils. The former are called Catarhine, a word signifying that the nostrils are directed downwards; the latter are called Platyrhine, or broad-nosed. The nostrils of all the Old World apes are separated by a narrow cartilaginous plate or septum, whereas the septum of the New World apes is broad. After the apes come, according to Mivart’s classification, the half-apes or lemuroids.

I ought, perhaps, to have mentioned that Mivart, in describing the lemuroids as the second sub-order of a great order of animals, the Primates, speaks of a man as (zoologically speaking) belonging to the first sub-order. So that, in point of fact, the two sub-orders are the Anthropoids, including the Anthropos (man) and the Lemuroids, including the lemur.

The classification here indicated will serve our present purpose very well. But the reader is reminded that, as already mentioned, naturalists do not adopt at present any uniform system of classification. Moreover, the term _Simiadæ_ is usually employed—and will be employed here—to represent the entire simian race, _i.e._, both the Simiadæ and the Cebidæ of Mivart’s classification.

And now, turning to the Anthropoid apes, we find ourselves at the outset confronted by the question, Which of the four apes, the gorilla, the orang-outang, the chimpanzee, or the gibbon, is to be regarded as nearest to man in intelligence? So far as bodily configuration is concerned, our opinion would vary according to the particular feature which we selected for consideration. But it will probably be admitted that intelligence should be the characteristic by which our opinions should be guided.

The gibbon may be dismissed at once, though, as will presently appear, there are some features in which this ape resembles man more closely than either the gorilla, the orang-outang, or the chimpanzee.

The gorilla must, I fear, be summarily ejected from the position of honour to which he has been raised by many naturalists. Though the gorilla is a much larger animal than the chimpanzee, his brain barely equals the chimpanzee’s in mass. It is also less fully developed in front. In fact Gratiolet asserts that of all the broad-chested apes, the gorilla is—so far as brain character is concerned—the lowest and most degraded. He regards the gorilla’s brain as only a more advanced form of that of the brutal baboons, while the orang’s brain is the culminating form of the gibbon type, and the chimpanzee’s the culminating form of the macaque type. This does not dispose of the difficulty very satisfactorily, however, because it remains to be shown whether the gibbon type and the macaque type are superior as types to the baboon types. But it may suffice to remark that the baboons are all brutal and ferocious, whereas the gibbons are comparatively gentle animals, and the macaques docile and even playful. It may be questioned whether brutality and ferocity should be regarded as necessarily removing the gorilla further from man; because it is certain that the races of man which approach nearest to the anthropoid apes, with which races the comparison should assuredly be made, are characterized by these very qualities, brutality and ferocity. Intelligence must be otherwise gauged. Probably the average proportion of the brain’s weight to that of the entire body, and the complexity of the structure of the brain, would afford the best means of deciding the question. But, unfortunately, we have very unsatisfactory evidence on these points. The naturalists who have based opinions on such evidence as has been obtained, seem to overlook the poverty of the evidence. Knowing as we do how greatly the human brain varies in size and complexity, not only in different races, but in different individuals of the same race, it appears unsatisfactory in the extreme to regard the average of the brains of each simian species hitherto examined as presenting the true average cerebral capacity for each species.

Still it seems tolerably clear that the choice as to the race of apes which must be regarded as first in intelligence, and therefore as on the whole the most manlike, rests between the orang-outang and the chimpanzee. “In the world of science, as in that of politics,” said Professor Rolleston in 1862, “France and England have occasionally differed as to their choice between rival candidates for royalty. If either hereditary claims or personal merits affect at all the right of succession, beyond a question the gorilla is but a pretender, and one or other of the two (other) candidates the true prince. There is a graceful as well as an ungraceful way of withdrawing from a false position, and the British public will adopt the graceful course by accepting forthwith and henceforth the French candidate”—the orang-outang. If this were intended as prophecy, it has not been fulfilled by the event, for the gorilla is still regarded by most British naturalists as the ape which comes on the whole nearest to man; but probably, in saying “the British public will adopt the graceful course” in accepting the orang-outang as “the king of the Simiadæ,” Professor Rolleston meant only that that course would be graceful if adopted.

Before the discovery of the gorilla, the chimpanzee was usually regarded as next to man in the scale of the animal creation. It was Cuvier who first maintained the claim of the orang-outang to this position. Cuvier’s opinion was based on the greater development of the orang-outang’s brain, and the height of its forehead. But these marks of superiority belong to the orang only when young. The adult orang seems to be inferior, or at least not superior, to the chimpanzee as respects cerebral formation, and in other respects seems less to resemble man. The proportions of his body, his long arms, high shoulders, deformed neck, and imperfect ears are opposed to its claims to be regarded as manlike. In all these respects, save one, the chimpanzee seems to be greatly its superior. (The ear of the chimpanzee is large, and not placed as with us: that of the gorilla is much more like man’s.)

As to the intelligence exhibited in the conduct of the chimpanzee and orang-outang, various opinions may be formed according to the various circumstances under which the animals are observed. The following has been quoted in evidence of the superiority of the chimpanzee in this respect:—“About fifty years ago, a young chimpanzee and an orang-outang of about the same age were exhibited together at the Egyptian Hall. The chimpanzee, though in a declining state of health, and rendered peevish and irritable by bodily suffering, exhibited much superior marks of intelligence to his companion; he was active, quick, and observant of everything that passed around him; no new visitor entered the apartment in which he was kept, and no one left it, without attracting his attention. The orang-outang, on the contrary, exhibited a melancholy and a disregard of passing occurrences almost amounting to apathy; and though in the enjoyment of better health, was evidently much inferior to his companion in quickness and observation. On one occasion, when the animals were dining on potatoes and boiled chicken, and surrounded as usual with a large party of visitors, the orang-outang allowed her plate to be taken without exhibiting the least apparent concern. Not so, however, the chimpanzee. We took advantage of an opportunity when his head was turned (to observe a person coming in) to secrete his plate also. For a few seconds he looked round to see what had become of it, but, not finding it, began to pout and fret exactly like a spoiled child, and perceiving a young lady, who happened to be standing near him, laughing, perhaps suspecting her to be the delinquent, he flew at her in the greatest rage, and would probably have bitten her had she not got beyond his reach. Upon having his plate restored, he took care to prevent the repetition of the joke by holding it firmly with one hand, while he fed himself with the other.”

This story can hardly be regarded as deciding the question in favour of the chimpanzee. Many animals, admittedly far inferior to the lowest order of monkeys in intelligence, show watchfulness over their food, and as much ill-temper when deprived of it, and as much anxiety to recover it, as this chimpanzee did. A hundred cases in point might readily be cited.[36]

Perhaps the soundest opinion respecting the relative position of the gorilla, chimpanzee, and orang-outang with reference to man, is that which places the gorilla nearest to the lower tribes of man now inhabiting Africa, the chimpanzee approximating, but not so closely, to higher African tribes, and the orang-outang approximating, but still less closely, to Asiatic tribes. It appears to me that, whatever weight naturalists may attach to those details in which the gorilla and the chimpanzee are more removed from man than the orang, no one who takes a _general_ view of these three races of anthropoid apes can hesitate to regard the gorilla as that which, on the whole, approaches nearest to man; but it is to a much lower race of man that the gorilla approximates, so that the chimpanzee and the orang-outang may fairly be regarded as higher in the scale of animal life.

If we consider young specimens of the three animals, which is, on the whole, the safest way of forming an opinion, we are unmistakably led, in my judgment, to such a conclusion. I have seen three or four young chimpanzees, two young orangs, and the young gorilla lately exhibited at the Aquarium (where he could be directly compared with the chimpanzee), and I cannot hesitate to pronounce Pongo altogether the most human of the three. A young chimpanzee reminds one rather of an old man than of a child, and the same may be said of young orangs; but the young gorilla unmistakably reminds one of the young negro. Repeatedly, while watching Pongo, I was reminded of the looks and behaviour of young negroes whom I had seen in America, though not able in every case to fix definitely on the feature of resemblance which recalled the negro to my mind. (The reader is, doubtless, familiar with half-remembered traits such as those I refer to—traits, for instance, such as assure you that a person belongs to some county or district, though you may be unable to say what feature, expression, or gesture suggests the idea.) One circumstance may be specially noted, not only as frequently recurring, but as illustrating the traits on which the resemblance of the gorilla (when young, at any rate) to the negro depends. A negro turns his eyes where a Caucasian would turn his head. The peculiarity is probably a relic of savage life; for the savage, whether engaged in war or in the chase, avoids, as far as possible, every movement of body or limb. Pongo looked in this way. When he thus cast his black eyes sideways at an object I found myself reminded irresistibly of the ways of the watchful negro waiters at an American hotel. Certainly there is little in the movements of the chimpanzee to remind one of any kind of human child. He is impish; but not the most impish child of any race or tribe ever had ways, I should suppose, resembling his.

The four anthropoid apes, full grown and in their native wilds, differ greatly from each other in character. It may be well to consider their various traits, endeavouring to ascertain how far diversities existing among them may be traced to the conditions under which the four orders subsist.

The gorilla occupies a well-wooded country extending along the coast of Africa from the Gulf of Guinea southwards across the equator. When full grown he is equal to a man in height, but much more powerfully built. “Of specimens shot by Du Chaillu,” says Rymer Jones, “the largest male seems to have been at least six feet two in height; so that, making allowance for the shortness of the lower limbs, the dimensions of a full-grown male may be said to equal those of a man of eight or nine feet high, and it is only in their length that the lower limbs are disproportionate to the gigantic trunk. In the thickness and solidity of their bones, and in the strength of their muscles, these limbs are quite in keeping with the rest of the body. When upright, the gorilla’s arms reach to his knees; the hind hands are wide, and of amazing size and power; the great toe or thumb measures six inches in circumference; the palms and soles, and the naked part of the face, are of an intense black colour, as is also the breast. The other parts are thickly clothed with hair of an iron grey, except the head, on which it is reddish brown, and the arms, where it is long and nearly black. The female is wholly tinged with red.”

Du Chaillu gives the following account of the aspect of the gorilla in his native woods:—“Suddenly, as we were yet creeping along in a silence which made even a heavy breath seem loud and distinct, the woods were at once filled with a tremendous barking roar; then the underbrush swayed rapidly just ahead, and presently stood before us an immense gorilla. He had gone through the jungle on all-fours; but when he saw our party he erected himself and looked us boldly in the face. He stood about a dozen yards from us, and was a sight I think I shall never forget. Nearly six feet high (he proved four inches shorter), with immense body, huge chest, and great muscular arms, with fiercely glaring, large, deep-grey eyes, and a hellish expression of face, which seemed to me some night-mare vision; thus stood before us the king of the African forest. He was not afraid of us; he stood there and beat his breasts with his large fists till it resounded like an immense bass drum (which is their mode of bidding defiance), meantime giving vent to roar after roar.”

The gorilla is a fruit-eater, but as fierce as the most carnivorous animals. He is said to show an enraged enmity against men, probably because he has found them not only hostile to himself, but successful in securing the fruits which the gorilla loves, for he shows a similar hatred to the elephant, which also seeks these fruits. We are told that when the gorilla “sees the elephant busy with his trunk among the twigs, he instantly regards this as an infraction of the laws of property, and, dropping silently down to the bough, he suddenly brings his club smartly down on the sensitive finger of the elephant’s proboscis, and drives off the alarmed animal trumpeting shrilly with rage and pain.” His enmity to man is more terribly manifested. “The young athletic negroes in their ivory-haunts,” says Gosse, “well know the prowess of the gorilla. He does not, like the lion, sullenly retreat on seeing them, but swings himself rapidly down to the lower branches, courting the conflict, and clutches the nearest of his enemies. The hideous aspect of his visage (his green eyes flashing with rage) is heightened by the thick and prominent brows being drawn spasmodically up and down, with the hair erect, causing a horrible and fiendish scowl. Weapons are torn from their possessor’s grasp, gun-barrels bent and crushed in by the powerful hands and vice-like teeth of the enraged brute. More horrid still, however, is the sudden and unexpected fate which is often inflicted by him. Two negroes will be walking through one of the woodland paths unsuspicious of evil, when in an instant one misses his companion, or turns to see him drawn up in the air with a convulsed choking cry, and in a few minutes dropped to the ground, a strangled corpse. The terrified survivor gazes up, and meets the grin and glare of the fiendish giant, who, watching his opportunity, had suddenly put down his immense hind hand, caught the wretch by the neck with resistless power, and dropped him only when he ceased to struggle.”

The chimpanzee inhabits the region from Sierra Leone to the southern confines of Angola, possibly as far as Cape Negro, so that his domain includes within it that of the gorilla. He attains almost the same height as the gorilla when full grown, but is far less powerfully built. In fact, in general proportions the chimpanzee approaches man more nearly than does any other animal. His body is covered with long black coarse hair, thickest on the head, shoulders, and back, and rather thin on the breast and belly. The face is dark brown and naked, as are the ears, except that long black whiskers adorn the animal’s cheeks. The hair on the forearms is directed towards the elbows, as is the case with all the anthropoid apes, and with man himself. This hair forms, where it meets the hair from the upper arm, a small ruff about the elbow joint. The chimpanzees live in society in the woods, constructing huts from the branches and foliage of trees to protect themselves against the sun and heavy rains. It is said by some travellers that the chimpanzee walks upright in its native woods, but this is doubtful; though certainly the formation of the toes better fits them to stand upright than either the gorilla or the orang. They arm themselves with clubs, and unite to defend themselves against the attacks of wild beasts, “compelling,” it is said, “even the elephant himself to abandon the districts in which they reside.” We learn that “it is dangerous for men to enter their forests, unless in companies and well armed; women in particular are often said to be carried away by these animals, and one negress is reported to have lived among them for the space of three years, during which time they treated her with uniform kindness, but always prevented any attempt on her part to escape. When the negroes leave a fire in the woods, it is said that the chimpanzees will gather round and warm themselves at the blaze, but they have not sufficient intelligence to keep it alive by fresh supplies of fuel.”

The orang-outang inhabits Borneo, Java, Sumatra, and other islands of the Indian coast. He attains a greater height than the gorilla, but, though very powerful and active, would probably not be a match for the gorilla in a single combat. His arms are by comparison as well as actually much longer. Whereas the gorilla’s reach only to the knees, the arms of the orang-outang almost reach the ground when the animal is standing upright. The orang does not often assume an upright attitude, however. “It seldom attempts to walk on the hind feet alone, and when it does the hands are invariably employed for the purpose of steadying its tottering equilibrium, touching the ground lightly on each side as it proceeds, and by this means recovering the lost balance of the body.” The gorilla uses his hands differently. He can scarcely be said to walk on all-fours, because he does not place the inside of the hand on the ground, but walks on the knuckles, evidently trying to keep the fore part of the body as high as possible. “The muzzle is somewhat long, the mouth ill-shaped, the lips thin and protuberant; the ears are very small, the chin scarcely recognizable, and the nose only to be recognized by the nostrils. The face, ears, and inside of the hands of the orang are naked and of a brick-red colour; the fore parts are also but thinly covered with hair; but the head, shoulders, back, and extremities are thickly clothed with long hair of dark wine-red colour, directed forwards on the crown of the head and upwards towards the elbows on the forearms.”

The orang-outang changes remarkably in character and appearance as he approaches full growth. “Though exhibiting in early youth a rotundity of the cranium and a height of forehead altogether peculiar, and accompanied at the same time with a gentleness of disposition and a gravity of manners which contrast strongly with the petulant and irascible temper of the lower orders of quadrumanous mammals, the orang-outang in its adult state is even remarkable for the flatness of its retiring forehead, the great development of the superorbital and occipital crests, the prominence of its jaws, the remarkable size of its canine teeth, and the whole form of the skull, which from the globular shape of the human head, as in the young specimen, assumes all the forms and characters belonging to that of a large carnivorous animal. The extraordinary contrasts thus presented in the form of the skull at different epochs of the same animal’s life were long considered as the characters of distinct species; nor was it till intermediate forms were obtained, exhibiting in some degree the peculiarities of both extremes, that they were finally recognized as distinguishing different periods of growth only.”