Vowel Sounds are so fluctuating and evanescent that they go for comparatively little in questions of Etymology. _Tan_ is equivalent to T--n; the place of the dash being filled by any vowel. _T_ is readily replaced by _th_ or _d_, and _n_ by _ng_; as is known to every Philological student. The object, which in English we call _tin_, and its name, are peculiar and important in this connection, as combining the two ideas in question: 1st, that of outstretched surface or _thinness_; and, 2d, that of a persistent tendency to give forth just that species of sound which we call, by a slight shade of difference in the form of the word, a _din_. The Latin _tintinnabulum_, a little bell, and the English _tinkle_, the sound made by a little bell, are among the words which are readily recognized as having a natural relation to a certain trivial variety of sound. The English _ding-dong_ and _ding-dong-bell_ are well-known imitations of sound; and are, at the same time, etymologically, mere modifications of the root under consideration. As _tone_ and _strain_ or _stretch_ are related in idea, as seen in the case of musical notes or tones, is it not as probable that the original root-word of which _tan_, _ton_, _thun_, _tin_, _din_, _ding_, _dong_, etc., are mere variations, took its rise from the imitation of sound, as it is that the fact of _strain_ or _stretch_ was the first to be observed and to obtain the name from which, afterward and accidentally, so to speak, were derived words which confessedly have a relation in their own sound to other and external sounds, as in the case of thunder, musical tone, the sheet of tin, and the bell? Is it not, in fact, more probable? In respect to the question whether _sucre_ and _sucre_ were introduced into Language because of their resemblance to the idea of sweetness, Professor Mueller gives a valid negative answer. He shows that the word is derived from the Sanskrit _'sarkhara_, 'which,' as he says, 'is anything but sweet sounding.' The question whether the words under consideration (_sucre_, _sucre_) are really sweet-sounding words, Professor Mueller decides by implication in the affirmative, and, perhaps, quite unconsciously, by the very act of contrasting them with another word which, as he affirms, is not at all sweet sounding. But this is by far the more important point than that of the mere historical genesis of the word; and a point which really touches vitally the whole question of the nature and Origin of Language.