While it is undoubtedly true that declamation holds a more important place in modern opera than it did in the operas of bygone days, and some declare that the art of vocalization is extinct, yet singers who can charm by pure vocalization are still as welcome as ever, though more is expected of them in the dramatic branch of their art. It is doubtful whether a greater trio of singers has been before the public at any time than Patti, Lucca, and Nilsson, and yet they appeared at a time when it was claimed that vocal art was dead. During the first half of the century we have seen that some of the great singers visited the United States. Garcia brought his daughter to America, where she created a great sensation and found her first husband. Sontag crossed the ocean, Grisi, Alboni, and Jenny Lind had found appreciative audiences in America. Among the men, Incledon was the first singer of importance to cross the water. We now arrive at a period when not only many great singers, and some of less repute, crossed the wild Atlantic for American dollars, but America began to supply singers to the European market. When Colonel Mapleson was interviewed in San Francisco during Patti's tour, he declared that there were more than 2,000 American vocal students in Europe, and he mentioned fifteen who had appeared under his management up to 1883. This number included Patti, who could hardly be claimed as American, for she was born in Madrid, of Italian parents. But between 1860 and 1870, Clara Louise Kellogg, Minnie Hauk, and Annie Louise Gary were genuine Americans, as was also Adelaide Phillips, who made her debut in 1854. In later years the number increased till, at the present day, at least two of the greatest artists among the prima donnas are of American origin, while a large number have reached a high position and may be destined for the greatest honors. The star of the year 1860 was born in Vienna, made her debut there, and remained there for some years. Marie Gabrielle Krauss was one of those singers, who, with a voice far from perfect, was able by her style, her phrasing, and her musical delivery, to which must be added the incontestable power of dramatic accent, to be classed among the greatest singers of her time. In 1867 she was engaged in Paris and sung there for many years, except during the Franco-Prussian war. In 1861, Carlotta Patti made her debut, but she was obliged to abandon the operatic stage on account of lameness. She was an elder sister of Adelina Patti, and for many years was very popular on the concert stage, sharing with her sister wonderful facility of execution and beautiful quality of voice. Probably no singer of her time travelled so extensively as Carlotta Patti, who is said to have visited every part of the world in which a concert could be successfully given. In 1879 she married Mr. Ernst de Munck, of Weimar, a violoncellist, but ten years later she died.