Uses of Shells. 15 



those who listened to the music drawn from this 



simple invention, says — 



" Less than a God they thought there could not dwell, 

 Within the hollow of that shell 

 That spoke so sweetly." 



A Greek writer, called Apollodorus, gives this 

 account of the invention of music by the Egyptian 

 god Hermes, more commonly known as Mercury. 

 The Nile having overflowed its banks, and laid 

 under water the whole country of Egypt, left, when 

 it returned to its usual boundaries, various dead 

 animals on the land; among the rest was a tor- 

 toise, the flesh of which being dried and wasted by 

 the sun, nothing remained within the shell except 

 nerves and cartilages, or thin gristly bones ; these 

 being shrunk and tightened by the heat, became 

 sonorous, that is sounding. Against this shell 

 Mercury chanced to strike his foot, and pleased by 

 the sound caused thereby, examined the shell from 

 which it came, and so got a notion, as we say, how 

 he might construct a musical instrument. The first 

 which he made was in the form of a tortoise, and 

 strung with the dried sinews of dead animals, 

 even as are the lutes, harps, and fiddles of our day. 

 This fanciful mode of accounting for the origin of 

 music is thus alluded to by a writer named Brown : 



