4lS NOTES. 



(2) MemMon, in honour of njchom afuperb monument ^was reared at 

 Thebes, Memnon^ the foil of Tithonus and Aurora, was killed at the 

 fiege of Troy by Achilles. A magnificent tomb was erefted to 

 his memoiy, at Thebes, in Egypt, the ruins of vvhirh rtill fubfift 

 on the banks of the Nile, in a place called by the Ancients, Man- 

 mnium ; and in modern times, by the Arabians, Medinet Habou ; 

 that is, City of the Father. Here are ftill to be fcen coloffal frag- 

 ments of his ftatiie, out of which, in fcn-mer times, harmonious 

 founds iffued at the rifing of Aurora. 



I propofe to make, in this place, fome obfervations on the 

 fubje6l of the found which that ftatue produced, becaufe it is 

 particularly interefring to the ftudy of Nature. In the firft 

 place, it is impoflible to call the faél in queftion. The Englifli 

 Traveller Richard Pocock who, in the year 1738, vifited the re- 

 mains of the Memnonium, of which he has given a defcription as 

 minute as the prefent ilate of things admits of, quotes, on the 

 fubjeél of the marvellous effect of Memnon\ ftatue, feveral autho- 

 rities of the Ancients, of which I here prefent an abridgment. 



Strabo tells us, that there were. in the Memnoiâum., among other 

 roloflal figures, two ftatues at a fmali diftance from each other ; 

 that the upper part of one of them had been thri)wn down, and 

 that there ifTued, once a day, from it's pedeilal, a noife fimilar 

 to that produced by ftriking upon a hard body. He himfelf 

 heard the noife, having been on the fpotwith j-Ellus Gallus ; but 

 he pretends not to affirm, whether it proceeded from the bafis, or 

 from the ftatue, or from the by-ftanders. 



Pliuy the Naturalift, a man more fcrupulouily exact than is 

 generally imagined, when an extraordinary fact is to be attefted, 

 fatisfies himfelf w ith relating the one in queftion, on the public 

 faith, employing fuch terms of doubt as thefe ; Narratnr, ut pu- 

 tajit, (lu-iint., of which he makes fuch frequent ufe in his Work. 

 It is when he is mentioning the ftone called b-ifaltes, Hiji. Nat. 

 hi. 36, cap. 7, 



lu-venii cadi m Egyptm in Eihiopia qucm vacant ia/alten, ferrei 



cohris at'^ae dur it ice 



Kon. 



