People's Pilot, Volume 5, Number 35, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 5 March 1896 — A Strange Language. [ARTICLE]

A Strange Language.

Professor Richard Garner’s son, who resides in Baltimore, relates an amusmade by Professor Mason, of the Smithsonian institution, in connection with Professor Garner’s earlier studies of the language of animals. Data concerning his researches had been promised by Professor Garner to Professor Mason and were sent on a phonograph cylinder. When Professor Mason put the cylinder in his own machine he heard distinct vowel and consonant sounds, but no intelligible words. Thinking the sounds were the much-talked-of monkey language, Professor Mason was much surprised at the result, and called a number of other professors to hear and be mystified. The next day there was a crowd around the phonograph to hear the queer sounds, but when the machine was started there issued from the ear pieces the words of a letter dictated at Roanoke, Va., by Professor Garner. The exof the mysterious sounds was found in the fact that when first used the cylinder was placed in the machine in such a way that the words were heard backward.