224 LETTERS ON NATURAL MAGIC. 



LETTER VII. 



Illusions depending on the ear Practised by the ancients Speaking 

 and singing heads of the ancients Exhibition of the invisible girl 

 described and explained Illusions arising from the difficulty of 

 determining the direction of sounds Singular example of this 

 illusion Nature of ventriloquism Exhibitions of some of the 

 most celebrated ventriloquists M. St. Gille Louis Brabant 

 M. Alexandre Captain Lyons account of Esquimaux ventrilo- 

 quists. 



NEXT to the eye the ear is the most fertile source of our 

 illusions, and the ancient magicians seem to have been 

 very successful in turning to their purposes the doctrines 

 of sound. In the labyrinth of Egypt, which contained 

 twelve palaces and 1500 subterraneous apartments, the 

 gods were made to speak in a voice of thunder ; and Pliny, 

 in whose time this singular structure existed, informs us 

 that some of the palaces were so constructed that their 

 doors could not be opened without permitting the peals 

 of thunder from being heard in the interior. When 

 Darius Hystaspes ascended the throne, and allowed his 

 subjects to prostrate themselves before him as a god, the 

 divinity of his character was impressed upon his wor- 

 shippers by the bursts of thunder and flashes of lightning 

 which accompanied their devotion. History has of course 

 not informed us how these effects were produced ; but it 

 is probable that, in the subterraneous and vaulted apart- 

 ments of the Egyptian labyrinth, the reverberated sounds 

 arising from the mere opening and shutting of the doors 

 themselves afforded a sufficient imitation of ordinary 



