77 6 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



The sonorous property of rocks is also manifested in the phonoliths 

 or ringing stones, of which several remarkable ones are known. The 

 embassy of the East India Company to China found a rock near the 

 city of Taucham, which gave out a noise like the sound of a trumpet 

 whenever it was rubbed with the finger. Such stones are not uncom- 

 mon in the department of the Loire, in France ; and the basin of 

 a fountain in the court of the Institute of France, in Paris, was 

 observed by Elwart to give the chord of F sharp when struck by 

 the hand. 



Plants also afford their peculiar sounds and music. Of this nature 

 were the oracular voices of the oaks at Dordona, a rustling of the trees 

 around the temple of Zeus, which, with the accompanying murmur of 

 the sacred fountain, was held to be prophetic. The rustling of the 

 trees was regarded by the Scandinavians and the Celts as a language 

 of nature, full of significance, of which the Druids were the conse- 

 crated interpreters. Possibly the woods, which the priests regarded 

 as holy, had the property of producing real harmonies, like those of 

 the iEolian harp. Such harmonious woods and musical trees are men- 

 tioned in many traditions of the olden time and reports of later times. 

 Some soldiers, encamped in a valley in the Black Forest toward the 

 end of the seventeenth century, heard charming sounds in the tops 

 of the fir-trees, accompanied by the rustling of the wind as it blew 

 through the narrow valley. A tradition of a similar music in a wood 

 near Cithas, in the department of the Haute Saone, France, is con- 

 firmed by the testimony of an ear-witness, Desire Monnier, author of 

 " Traditions populaires comparees." The filao, a tree of the island of 

 Bourbon, emits soft, melancholy tones when its slender boughs are 

 shaken by the wind. An avenue of such trees is the source of won- 

 derfully touching harmonies. The reeds and rushes of the island of 

 Sylt, with their supple stems and interlaced roots, give forth, when- 

 ever the lightest wind is blowing, tones which are at times like whis- 

 pers, like a subdued singing, or like a loud whistle. The wind, which 

 in this case causes the root-fibers to be rubbed together and turns the 

 limber stalks upon themselves, exerts a similar action on the innumer- 

 able thistles of the Hungarian steppes, where, as on the battle-field of 

 Kapolna, moui'nful sounds, mingled with the soft soughing of the 

 wind, are heard on still nights. The poets of all ages have sung of 

 these sounds of nature ; the literature of all nations abounds in fables 

 and myths concerning them ; they possibly suggested the first attempts 

 to make musical instruments ; and they have suggested to the great 

 musical composers themes for many of the striking passages of their 

 most successful works. Die JVatur. 



