SOUNDS IN GRANITE ROCKS. 237 



rays of the rising sun upon one or more metallic 

 levers, which by their expansion put in motion 

 the seven hammers in succession. Hence he 

 explains why the sounds were emitted only at 

 sunrise, and when the solar rays fell upon the 

 mouth of the statue, and why they were never 

 again heard till the sun returned to the eastern 

 horizon. As a piece of mechanism, this con- 

 trivance is defective in not providing for the 

 change in the sun's amplitude, which is very 

 considerable even in Egypt, for as the statue and 

 the lens are both fixed, and as the sounds were 

 heard at all seasons of the year, the same lens 

 which threw the Midsummer rays of the sun 

 upon the hammers could not possibly throw 

 upon them his rays in winter. But even if the 

 machinery were perfect, it is obvious that it could 

 not have survived the mutilation of the statue, 

 and could not, short of a miracle, have performed 

 its part in the time of Sir A. Smith. 



If we abandon the idea of the whole being a 

 trick of the priesthood, which has been generally 

 done, and which the recent observations of Sir 

 A. Smith authorise us to do, we must seek some 

 natural cause for the phenomena similar to that 

 suggested by Dussaulx. It is curious to observe 

 how the study of nature gradually dispels the 

 consecrated delusions of ages, and reduces to the 

 level of ordinary facts what time had invested 

 with all the characters of the supernatural : and 

 in the present case it is no less remarkable that 

 the problem of the statue of Memnon should 

 have been first solved by means of an observation 

 made by a solitary traveller wandering on the 

 banks of the Orinoco. " The granitic rock,'' 



