560 



we not admit, 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 musio of the 

 rocks there led to the jugglery of the priests in 

 the statue of Memnon t Perhaps, when " the 

 rosy-fingered Aurora rendered her son, the glo- 

 rious Memnon, vocal the voice was that of a 

 man hidden beneath the pedestal of the statue ; 

 but the observation of the natives of the Oroonoko, 

 which we relate, seems to explain in a natural 

 manner what gave rise to the Egyptian belief of 

 a stone, that poured forth sounds at sunrise. 



Almost at the same period, at which I com- 

 municated these conjectures to some of the 

 learned of Europe, three French travellers, 

 Messrs. Jomard, Jollois, and Devilliers, were 

 led to analogous ideas. They heard at sunrise, 

 in a monument of granite placed at the centre 

 of the spot on which the palace of Karnak stands, 

 a noise resembling that of a string breaking. 

 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 rarified air through the 



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

 that sounds were heard on the 13th of the month Paction, in 

 the tenth year of the reign of Antoninus. See Mon. de 

 VEgypte ancienne, vol. ii, pi. xxii, fig. 6. 



