THE STATUE OF MEMNOff. 227 



menor that seems to depend on a certain state of the 

 atmosphere, cannot be denied. The shelves of rock are full 

 of very narrow and deep crevices. They are heated during 

 the day to 48 or 50. I several times found their tempe- 

 rature at the surface, during the night, at 39, the surround- 

 ing atmosphere being at 28. It may easily be conceived, 

 that the difference of temperature between the subterranean 

 and the external air attains its maximum about sunrise, or 

 at that moment which is at the same time farthest from 

 the period of the maximum of the heat of the preced- 

 ing day. May not these organ-like sounds, which are 

 heard when a person lays his ear in contact with the 

 stone, be the effect of a current of air that issues out 

 through the crevices ? Does not the impulse of the air 

 against the elastic spangles of mica that intercept the 

 crevices, contribute to modify the sounds? May we not 

 abmit that the ancient inhabitants of Egypt, in passing 

 incessantly up and down the Nile, had made the same 

 observation on some rock of the Thebaid ; and that the 

 ' music of the rocks' there led to the jugglery of the priests 

 in the statue of Memnon ? Perhaps, when ' the rosy- 

 fingered Aurora rendered her son, the glorious Memnon, 

 vocal,'* the voice was that of a man hidden beneath the 

 pedestal of the statue ; but the observation of the natives 

 of the Orinoco, which we relate, seems to explain in a 

 natural manner what gave rise to the Egyptian belief of a 

 stone that poured forth rounds at sunrise. 



Almost at the same period at which I communicated these 

 conjectures to some of the learned of Europe, three French 

 travellers, MM. Jomard, Jollois, and Devilliers, were led 

 to analogous ideas. They heard, at sunrise, in a monument 

 of granite, at the centre of the spot on which stands the 

 palace of Karnak, a noise resembling that of a string break- 

 ing. Now this comparison is precisely that which the 

 ancients employed in speaking of the voice of Memnon. 

 The French travellers thought, like me, that the passage of 



* These are the words of an inscription, which attests that sounds 

 were heard on the 13th of the month Pachon, in the tenth year of the 

 reign of Antoninus. See Mooumenta de 1'Egypte Ancienne. 



