Consonants form, as it were, the bare and bony skeleton of speech; vowels give definite shape and individuality to words. Thus the consonants sprt constitute the common skeleton of such diverse words as sport—spirt, sprat—sprite, spirit, support, separate, aspirate—asperate, which receive their distinct configuration and filling up from the vowel-sounds, which cover the consonant skeleton with molded elegance and variety. Consonants are thus the more stable elements of words, and their interchanges in the corresponding words of allied tongues are found to follow certain general laws dependent on the relations and affinities of letters. See GRIMM'S LAW. These relations are exhibited in the following table: In pronouncing the letters of the first class, the lips are chiefly concerned; in the second, the principal organ is the tongue, or the tongue and the teeth (whence they are also called dentals); anil in the third, the back-parts of the tongue and palate are employed. But whik all the sounds of each class have thus a common organic relation, the first pair differs from the other letters of the same class by being obstructive or shut— otherwise called mute (q.v.); the remaining letters, having open apertures, are continu ous or sibilant in effect—otherwise called asperate (q.v.). The difference also between the members of the several pairs is of the same kind throughout; p differs from b as f does from v, or t from d, or sla from zh.
In Mr. Ellis's Plea for Phonetic Spelling, and Mr. Melville Bell's Principles of Speech,
the student will find a complete development of the theory of articulate sounds. Various attempts have been made to introduce a system of phonotypes, in which each sound should be represented by one invariable character. None of the schemes comes near in success to the system of Visible Speech (q.v.) published by Mr. Melville Bell some years ago.
one of the most beautiful productions of the vegetable kingdom; it is the heart-wood of a tree found sparingly in the forests of British Guiana, the piratin era guianeusis of Aublet, and the brosimura aubletii of Poeppig, belonging to the bread fruit family (artocarpacece). It grows from 60 to 70 ft. high, and acquires a diameter of from 2 to 3 feet. The outer layers of wood (alburnum) are white and hard; the central portion, or heart-wood, which rarely exceeds 7 in. in thickness, is extremely hard and heavy, and is of a rich dark-brown color, most beautifully mottled with very deep brown, almost black spots, arranged with much greater regularity than is usually the ease in the markings of wood, and bearing a slight resemblance to the thick letters of some old black-letter printing. Its scarcity and value make it an article of rare and limited application. It is used only in this country for fine veneer and inlaying work, and in Guiana for small articles of cabinet-work. The natives make bows of state of it, but are said to prefer a variety which is not mottled. '