As I said in the last chapter, there is a great difference between the production and the reproduction of a sound, and a machine like the phonograph, adapted for the reproduction of sound, may differ essentially from a machine which really speaks. In fact, the reproduction even of articulate sounds may be very simple, as soon as we possess the means of stereotyping the vibrations of air necessary to transmit these sounds; but in order to produce them, and especially to emit the complex vibrations which constitute speech, it is necessary to set in motion a number of special organs, fulfilling more or less exactly the functions of the larynx, the mouth, the tongue, the lips, and even the nose. For this reason, a speaking machine is necessarily very complicated, and this is precisely the case with the machine we are now considering. Such a machine is not now made for the first time, and the Academy has lately been reminded of a speaking head which was in the possession of the philosopher Albertus Magnus in the thirteenth century, and which was destroyed by St. Thomas Aquinas as a diabolical invention. Mr. Faber’s speaking machine was exhibited two years ago at the Grand Hôtel, and may now be seen in the room adjoining M. Robert Houdin’s theatre, the same room in which Mr. Giffard exhibited the telephone. It consists of three distinct parts: 1st, of a large bellows worked by a pedal, which produces the currents of air necessary for the production of sounds, and to some extent acts as the lungs; 2nd, a vocal instrument, consisting of a larynx accompanied by diaphragms of various forms to modify the sounds, of a mouth with caoutchouc lips and tongue, and of a tube with an outlet somewhat resembling the nasal cavities; 3rd, of a system of jointed levers and of pedals, terminating in keys like those of a piano. The most interesting part of the machinery, of which we represent the principle fig. 73, is the vocal apparatus, which involved the severest study of physics in order to succeed in the production of articulate sounds. It consists, first, of a rather thick caoutchouc tube, within which there is a kind of whistle L, as in a clarionet. The whistle consists of a small caoutchouc cylinder with a longitudinal slit, and before this is placed a very thin ivory plate lined with caoutchouc. This plate is fixed at one end to the cylinder, and deviates slightly from it at its free end, so as to permit the current of air projected from the bellows S to penetrate between the two parts, and to cause the vibrations in the ivory plate necessary for the production of a sound. The extremity of the caoutchouc cylinder is closed on this side, and is fitted to an iron rod _t_ which comes out of the pipe, and is connected with a system of bars, corresponding to the keyboard of a piano, by which the force of sounds can be regulated. This force depends on the width of the opening between the tongue and the cylinder. [Illustration: FIG. 73.]