STONES THAT SING AND STATUES THAT SPEAK.

Northland Age, Volume VI, Issue 34, 18 April 1910, Page 2

STONES THAT SING AND STATUES THAT SPEAK.

BOUNDS VARYING FROM THE harp to thunder. Man*B love of the marvellous and mysterious has been gratified by the discovery of stones and sand from which issued sounds, apparently of supernatural origin. The phenomena exhibit so great a variety that the vocal stones may be separated into a number of distinct classes One of the most remarkable of these groups is exemplified by a sand l ank about 60 feet high, on the south west coast of the island of Hawaii According to Mr. W. R. Trink, who has been investigating the phenomenon, a tone like that of a alelodeon is produced by moving the hand in a circle through the loose sand If the observer kneels, with loth hands in the sand, and slides down the bank, the sound becomes louder and louder until it resembles distant thunder and alarms horses tethered near by. The loud est sound was produced when a native lay prone on the sand and another native dragged him by the down the bank, carrying a large quantity of sand down with him

Dr James Rlake discovered, by examining with a microscope thin sections of the grains of sand, which are of volcanic origin, that each grain was perforated by a narrow canal which, as a rule, was closed at one end These peculiarly formed grains of sand appear to act as »*esonators, the air enclosed in them set into vibration by the mutual friction of the grains. When the sand is damp the sound is not produced, because the friction is diminished, and many of the tubular cavitirs are filled with water. The singing sands, of Mt. Sinai pro bably admit of a similnt expluna tion. Wellsted describes the sand as yielding beneath the feet of n Bedotiin climbing up the slope. not flowing down in a continue 'ream, but breaking away in large Masses At first the sound resembled the faint tones of an Aeolian harp stirred by • gentle breeze, but as the motion became more rapid the sonnd «ro* like that produced by a wet ‘ ngcr rubbed on the rim of a w -r.' -las?*, and when the sand arn t the foot of the mountain • f • a noiaa like thunder, which sb the rock on which the travel- »*» cat, and so terrified the camels that it was difficult to bold them. Hoi nJs of a very different charac- » i and origin are emitted by certain rocky cliffs in the Harz Mountains and In the Pyrenees Two pret triton* cliffs in the Harz, near Schlerke, are called ’ The Snorers.” from the peculiar sounds which the south west wind draws from them. The faces of these cliffs are marked by deep £uIIIm, which roughly resemble organ pipes open in front, sod occasionally the front is practically cloned by a stratum of air held motionless between tbe cliff and thu trees which graze it, while the wind blows freely through tbe gullies, or organ pipes, behind. Sinning stone* are found In various parts of the world. Fraas, Journeying from the Red Sea to the Nile, *»w a round, thin fragment an inch In diameter, resembling a shell, iplit off, with a peculiar sound, from a flint which lay baking in the hot nin at his feet. This observation is eery remarkable and perhaps unique, for flint* split gradually as a rule, but the violent and noisy rupture of the last bond under the influence of the sun's rays and in the presence of an observer does not seem Impossible. Broken flints arc common in tho desert. Many pel sous have heaid the noise reused by similar fractures of bard rocks, and have Mesn the fragments roll down mountain slopes. Behai writes of the basalt columns of the Bamaugwato hills. iu South Africa . “In the eveoing. after a hot day. It was not tautUAl to hear the basalt crack And fall with a peculiai ringing sound, from whicb the native inferred that the rock contained much iron."

The etory of a speaking stone has come down to us from ancient Egypt. T his stone was one of the twin colossal statues of Memnon at Thebes. According t.o the myth, Memnon was the son of Eos, goddess of the dawn. He was turned to stone, but still continued to greet bis mother at suorise. Tbe statue, however, seems to have extended its greetings to earthly visitors of high rank. According to Balbilla. a literary lady attached to the court, of Hadrian, the statue greeted the emperor three times, the empress twice, and a Roman general once, greeting the emperor at his first visit, but compelling tbe others to come a second time before it would condescend to speak. The .voice of the statue is described as resembling tbe sound of a blow struck on bronze

Tbe conscientious and trustworthy historian. Strabo, visited the statue, whicb was then partly destroyed, and writes that be heard a sound issuing from t he vicinity of tbe rem nant at sunrise, but that he could not positively state whether the sound came from tbe statue, its pedestal, or one of the attendants I Pausanias. on tbe other hand, expresses oo doubt that the sound, which he compares to that of a lyre, came from tbe statue. HOW TRAVELLERS ARE DECEIVED One way In which Memnon may have teen caused to speak was suggested by an experience of Professor George Rosenfeld. He writes : —"I visited the statue not at sunrisc(, but towards evening A fellah asked if we wished to hear the . ' music.* We assented, and be clamten 1 up the colossus and vanished in s cranny at the elbow. At once we beard loud sounds of so me-

: taiilc a character that I asked my i donkey boy if the man was strikI lag a bell. ‘No ; a bar of iron,’ the boy replied. Yet I read in a recent ' guide book : ' EveD now the guide's hammer draws bell-like tones from the hard, resonant stone.’ If the gu des can so deceive the makers of guide books, what wonder that Greek and Roman travellers were still more grossly deceived by the cunning Egyptian priests ? As a matter of fact, the sound produced by striking the stone is not at all metallic. “My experience also suggests the reason why only one of the twin statues spoke, and why this one, though it retained its vocal powers after its upper part had beeD thrown to the ground by an earthquake in 27 8.C., became silent after its restoration by Septimius Severus about 200 A D The lowei part of this statue may have possessed crannies li l e the one occupied by my musician. and these would naturally be filled in the process of restoration.” —''Popular Science Siftings.”