Feb., 1912. Jade. 327 



"The use of sonorous stone to make musical instruments," as 

 Mr. J. A. van Aalst (Chinese Music, p. 48) justly remarks, "may be 

 said to be peculiar to China. 1 At all events, the Chinese were the first 

 to give stone a place in music ; their classics frequently mention the stone 

 chime as being known by the ancient emperors and held in great es- 

 teem." They are mentioned on three occasions in the "Tribute of Yii " 

 (in the Shu king) where also stones for polishing the musical stones 

 occur. 



There are two principal classes of sonorous stones, — the single 

 stone and the compound stones. The former (t'e k'ing) is a stone cut 

 somewhat in the shape of a carpenter's square, but in the form of an 

 obtuse angle with two limbs, the longer one called the "drum," the 

 shorter, the "limb." It is suspended in a wooden frame by means of 

 a silk cord passing through a hole bored at the apex. It is still employed 

 during the ceremonies performed in the Confucian temples and struck 

 with a hammer against the longer limb to give a single note at the end 

 of each verse. In the compound stones (pi en king) , sixteen of the same 

 type as the single stone, but on a smaller scale, are suspended in two 

 equal rows on a wooden frame, all being of the same dimensions in 

 length and breadth, differing only in thickness; the thicker the stone, 

 the deeper the sound. Also this instrument serves in the Confucian 

 temples, in connection with bell-chimes, the bell being struck at the 

 beginning of each long note in the tune, and the stone at the end. 2 



All the jade gongs and bells in our collection, including one of 

 rock-crystal, come down from the K'ien-lung epoch, the latter half of 

 the eighteenth century, but they are of such eminent workmanship 



I ' There are perhaps some exceptions in America (Fischer, p. 28). Sonoious 

 stones from Peru are referred to by C. Engel, A Descr. Catalogue of the Musical 

 Instruments in the South Kens. Mus., p. 81. Prof. M. H. Saville (The Antiquities 

 of Manabi, Ecuador, p. 67, New York, 1907) relates after Suarez that "in Picoaza 

 there was preserved, until a little while ago, a bell of the aborigines of that locality; 

 it was a stone slab of black slate, a metre (little more or less) in height, and some 

 centimetres wide; when this stone was suspended from one of its ends, the striking 

 of it with another stone or with the hand produced a metallic and pleasant sound, 

 which vibrated like that of a bell." Saville failed to find any traces of this stone, 

 ind thinks that it is probably being used as a metate in one of the houses in the 

 .'illage. A beautiful sonorous stone excavated by Dr. George A. Dorsey in Ecuador 

 s in the collections of the Field Museum (see Publ. 56, Anthr. Ser., Vol. II, No. 5, 

 j. 259). There is, further, in this Museum (Cat. No. 70940) a trap signal from the 

 Porno Indians, California, consisting of two obsidian blocks for hanging in such a 

 nanner that the trapped deer strike them and announce their capture to the hunter. 



n the Memoires concernant les Chinois, Vol. VI, p. 221, attention is called to black 

 rous stones mentioned by Pliny. 



1 Compare van Aalst, /. c, pp. 48-49; Dennys, Notes on Chinese Instruments of 

 [usic, p. 105 {Journal China Branch R. As. Society, Vol. VIII, 1874); A - C. Moule, 

 ^hinese Musical Instruments, pp. 30-33 (Ibid., Vol. XXXIX, 1908). Amiot's 

 Sssai sur les pierres sonores still remains the most valuable contribution to this 

 ubject. 



