ow be given. These resonance-chambers
remain, for many, an apparatus used daily and absolutely essential,
yet never examined. Fortunately, a few illustrations, which should be
followed by an examination of the student's own resonance-chambers and
their various parts as they may be seen in a mirror, will remove all
difficulty in the understanding of them, and prepare for that detailed
study to be recommended in a subsequent chapter.

Passing from before backward, one meets the _lips_, the _teeth_ and
_gums_, the _hard palate_, which is a continuation of the gums; then,
suspended from the hard palate, behind, is the _soft palate_, back of
which lies the _pharynx_ (often termed "the throat"), and above it and
constituting its continuation, the _naso-pharynx_; and lying on the
floor of the mouth there is the _tongue_.

Certain of these parts, as the teeth, gums, hard palate, nasal bones,
etc., constitute fixed structures, and though they determine in no
small measure the shape of the resonance-chambers, and so to a degree
the quality of the voice, so movable are the lips, soft palate, and,
above all, the tongue, that there is the widest scope for varying the
quality and even the volume of the voice; so that it is a good thing,
practically, for every one to believe that so far as quality, at all
events, is concerned, he is the master of his own destinies.

Though we are accustomed to believe that the mouth and nose are,
though neighbors, quite separate and independent of each other, such
is not the case. Indeed, in the pre-natal condition these are not two,
but one; and in some instances they remain imperfectly separated,
owing to the failure of the hard palate to develop to the full--a
condition known as "cleft palate," and giving rise to a peculiar nasal
intonation, to be explained presently.

The _nasal chambers_ are divided into two by a vertical partition, as
one can readily demonstrate by the use of his fingers, and are still
further broken up by certain bones, the scroll-shaped or _turbinated_
bones, so that the nasal chambers are of very limited size, and much
divided up by bony outgrowths from their walls. The _vertical septum_,
while bony above, is cartilaginous and flexible below.

Without the aid of instruments and a good light the nose can be but
indifferently examined from the front, while it requires the greatest
skill on the part of a laryngologist to see it well from behind.
However, the whole difficult