for a
word which, as a proper description of the thing it is to
designate, shall always call a correct image to the reader's mind,
and as I cannot find a better one than "Ligament," I have adopted
it. I shall consequently in these pages always speak of the
tone-producing element as the "Vocal Ligaments."

The vocal ligaments, having met, are struck by the air blown against
them from below, and being elastic they yield, allowing themselves to be
forced upwards. A little air is thereby set free, and the pressure from
below diminished, in consequence of which the vocal ligaments resume
their former position, and even move a little more downwards. The
renewed pressure of the air once more overcomes the resistance of the
vocal ligaments, which again recede as soon as another escape of air has
taken place, and this process is repeated in rapid and regular
succession. In this manner, and in this manner alone, is vocal tone
produced, whether it be called chest, falsetto, head, or by any other
name.

There are still some writers who teach a different doctrine. For
instance, Miss Sabilla Novello, in her "Voice and Vocal Art,"
embodied in the "Collegiate Vocal Tutor," published by Novello,
Ewer, and Co., says on p. 9, that "The head voice results from the
upper [_i.e._, the false] vocal cords" (these we shall see
presently), and on page 13, that the falsetto tones "are created
principally by the action of the trachea [windpipe] and not by that
of the vocal ligaments." Another writer, Mr. Rumney Illingworth, in
a paper "On the Larynx and its Physiology," read before the Royal
Medical Society of Edinburgh, on March 3rd, 1879, and communicated
to "The Students' Journal and Hospital Gazette" (Vol. IV., No. 91,
p. 151), says that "The falsetto voice is produced by the laryngeal
sacculi [the pockets of the voicebox, which will be described
further on] acting in the same way as a hazel-nut can be made to
act as a whistle, when the kernel has been extracted through a
small hole in the shell; or as part of the cavity of the mouth acts
in whistling." I shall refer to these theories again as the
opportunity for their proper discussion arises; for the present I
will quote a few authorities on the subject.

Dr. CARPENTER, in his "Human Physiology," eighth edition, page 914,
says, "The true theory of the voice may