SPEAKING AND SINGING HEADS. 157 



LETTER VII. 



Illusions depending on the ear Practised by the ancients 

 Speaking and singing heads of the ancients Exhibi- 

 tion of the Invisible Girl described and explained Illu- 

 sions arising from the difficulty of determining the direction 

 of sounds Singular example of this illusion Nature of 

 ventriloquism Exhibitions of some of the most cele- 

 brated ventriloquists M. St. Gille Louis Brabant M. 

 Alexandre Capt. Lyon's account of Esquimaux ventri- 

 loquists. 



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 Laby- 

 rinth 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 

 to be heard in the interior. When Darius Hys- 

 taspes ascended the throne, and allowed his sub- 

 jects to prostrate themselves before him as a god, 

 the divinity of his character was impressed upon 

 his worshippers 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 

 apartments of the Egyptian labyrinth, the rever- 

 berated sounds arising from the mere opening 



