this group except in well-defined cases of cultured and emphatic diction. In everyday conversation, x before a consonant is pronounced like a simple s. Navarro makes no exceptions to this generalization in the Manual; the examples that he cites (extranio, explicaci6n, exponer, excelente, excepcidn, exclamar, excursi6n, and extensi6n) show no recognizable patterning of stress or phonetic environment other than that of simply being preconsonantal. The reader therefore infers that all examples of x before a consonant are intended to be covered. Hearsay and casual observation suggest that all is not well with Navarro's generalization. This suspicion was followed up in a series of notes in which I participated and which, owing to the sketchiness of the data, has been challenged, in a sense quite justifiably.2 The data seemed sufficient for the aim, which was limited to releasing teachers of English-speaking students from the necessity of teaching a non-English value for x: Spanish Americans of diverse origins were heard to use pre-consonantal [ks] with some regularity; mistakes in spelling, such as ecstraordinario and ecselentisinmo in a document of Governor Jos6 Figueroa,3 indicated that [ks] is and was anything but extinct; friends recently in Madrid indicated their surprise on hearing [ks] in popular speech there; and careful listening on the spot in Costa Rica and Guatemala4 confirmed that in Central America, at any rate, [ks] is often heard. The present study was undertaken to pin the suspicions and hearsay to a somewhat more dependable scientific framework and to answer at least the paramount pedagogical question of whether it is worth while to do more in our elementary textbooks than to say pronounce x like [ks], as in English. The results achieved do answer that central question, I think conclusively. They also answer, again conclusively I believe, the question of whether any blanket statement can be made covering all instances of pre-consonantal x. The remaining facts that were turned upthe border and ragged edge of any inquiry that must ask more than it needs in order not to prove less-are set down here as markers for further investigation, not as scientific proofs. It is of more than incidental interest if the results extend beyond the primary findings concerning a problem of phonetics. The value of x is a radioactive tracer, as it were, whose adventures reveal currents in the cultural stream not immediately visible of themselves.