MuLLKX — On (I Set of Miiaical Stones. 438 



From another source^ we hear that among the ancient Chinese 

 musical instruments is the pein king, which is an assortment of 

 sixteen stones arranged on strings in two series of eight each, one 

 above the other, and giving out, when struck successively, the 

 system of sounds employed by the ancient Chinese in their music. 

 The size and shape of these stones have been very carefully deter- 

 mined by them, after a minute analysis of the sounds peculiar to 

 each one. In order to render the sound graver, the thickness. of 

 the stone is diminished to the right amount, and to render it more 

 acute something is cut off its length. Frequent endeavours have 

 been made to decide what kind of stone was employed, since they 

 were customarily paid as tribute-money, more than two thousand 

 years before Christ, by certain provinces in China. Some authors 

 have thought they recognized in them a kind of black marble ; 

 and the editor of the works of Father Amiote asserts that the 

 musical stones constructed in France, with the black marble of 

 Flanders, were quite as sonorous as those of China. 



The ancients turned to account the acoustic properties of cer- 

 tain kinds of stone in a remarkable way." Pausanias tells of a 

 marvellous stone that was placed as a sentinel at the entrance of a 

 treasury ; and that robbers were scared away by the trumpet tones 

 which it sent forth. Several kinds of stone have this property of 

 resonance, and it is probable that a stone of this description was so 

 suspended as to be struck by a projecting piece of metal when the 

 external door of the treasury opened. 



The clink-stone indicates by its very name its sonorous quali- 

 ties. The red granite of the Thebaid in Egypt possesses similar 

 properties. And so musical are the granite rocks on the Orinoco, 

 that the natives attribute the sounds to witchcraft. In Brazil 

 travellers have seen large blocks of basalt which emitted very 

 clear sounds when struck ; and the Chinese employ this stone in 

 the manufacture of musical instruments. 



Many years ago a discovery was made at Kendal, in West- 

 moreland, of some musical stones which, when struck with a piece 

 of iron, or another stone, gave out sounds of very different pitch, 

 and with eight of which it would be possible to attain a very dis- 



^ The Practical Dictiouary of Mechanics, by Edward H. Knight, C.E. 

 - The World of Wonders. 



.SCIEN. PKOC:. K.D.S. — VOL. IV. P" . Til. . 2 



