Magic, Pretended Miracles, and Remarkable Natural Phenomena

by Anonymous

A little knowledge would have disabused the mind of this delusion. The celebrated Logan or Logging-stone, near the Land’s End in Cornwall, is an immense block, weighing about sixty tons. The surface in contact with the under rock is, however, of very small extent; and the whole mass is so nicely balanced, that, notwithstanding its magnitude, the strength of a single man is sufficient to make it oscillate, when applied to the under edge. It is the nature of granite to disintegrate or decompose by the action of the air and moisture; a huge mass is thus split into several blocks, and at length, by the continued operation of the elements, one is suspended on the rest.

Sounds emitted from rocks have often been regarded as portentous. Mr. G. Bennett, when at Macao, had his attention directed to a mass of granite rocks, appearing as if separated by some convulsion of nature, many of which were found, when trodden on, to be movable. The first, and by far the most sonorous, was partially excavated underneath; and, by striking it upon the upper part, a deep sound, “like that of a church bell,” was produced. “The battered appearance of the stone above,” it is said, “bore several proofs of how many visitors had made this lion roar.” Many of the other rocks were also sonorous, but not so loud as the first, and, from their situations, “they were movable when trodden on; but it could not be seen, whether, like the preceding, they were excavated, and, in consequence of being so, sonorous.”

In the chain of El-Heman, and not far from the Red Sea, is the Jebal Narkous, or “Mountain of the Bell.” It forms one of a ridge of low calcareous hills, which are connected by a sandy plain, extending, with a gentle rise, to their base. It is composed of a light-coloured friable sandstone, about the same as the rest of the chain; but an inclined plane of almost impalpable sand rises at an angle of about forty degrees with the horizon, and is bounded by a semi-circle of rocks, presenting broken, abrupt, and pinnacled forms, and extending to the base of this remarkable hill. Its height is about four hundred feet.

Lieutenant Wellsted observed, that the shape and arrangement of the rocks resembled, in some respects, a whispering-gallery; but he ascertained, by experiment, that their irregular surface rendered them but ill-adapted for the production of an echo. Seated on a rock at the base of the sloping eminence, he directed a Bedouin to ascend; and it was not till he had reached some distance that the lieutenant perceived the sand in motion, rolling down the hill to the depth of a foot. It did not, however, descend in one continued stream, but, as the Arab scrambled upwards, it spread out laterally and above, until a considerable portion of the surface was in motion. As the sand began to fall, the sounds produced might be compared to the faint strains of an Eolian harp when its strings first catch the breeze. When the sounds became more violently agitated by the increased velocity of the descent, the noise more nearly resembled that produced by drawing the moistened fingers over glass. As it reached the base, the reverberations attained the loudness of distant thunder, causing the rock on which lieutenant Wellsted was seated to vibrate; and the camels, animals not easily frightened, became so alarmed, that their drivers could only retain them with difficulty. The noise, it was remarked, did not issue from every part of the hill alike, the loudest being produced by disturbing the sand on the northern side, about twenty feet from the base, and about ten from the rocks that bound it in that direction. The tradition is, that the bells of a convent were buried here; the Bedouins trace the sounds to several wild and fanciful causes; but, in the experiment now described, it was evident that the sounds sometimes fell quicker on the ear, and at other times were more prolonged, according to the Arab’s increasing or retarding the velocity of his descent.

Dr. Chladni made many curious experiments on the figures assumed by sand and similar substances, when strewed over vibrating sonorous bodies. The reader may easily try an experiment of this kind. Let a square piece of glass be taken, such as that used for windows, not less than four or five inches over, the edges of which are to be smoothed by grinding. Spread over the plate, as evenly as possible, a little sand, and, holding it between the thumb and fore-finger, in the middle, pass the bow of a violin against one of its edges, drawing it either upwards or downwards, in a direction perpendicular to its surface. A tremulous motion will be immediately observed, and the sand will assume some particular and fixed figure. If the bow be passed over the middle of one of the sides, the sand will arrange itself in the direction of the two diagonals, dividing the square into four isosceles triangles. If the bow be applied at any point which is one-fourth the length of the square from any angle, the arrangement of the sand will represent the two diameters of the square, dividing it into four equal figures of the same form. If the square be held at the two extremities of either diameter, and the bow be applied to the extremities of the other diameter, the sand will take the figure of an oval, having its major axis in the same direction as one of the diameters.

Other experiments of the same kind have since been made by M. Voigt, and also by the celebrated Oersted. The latter covered a plate of metal or glass with the lycopodium seed, or the seed of the club-moss, instead of sand; he then tried to produce a sound in the manner of Chladni, and instantly he saw the dust distribute itself into a number of little regular tumuli, which put themselves in motion at their extremities, or formed the figures discovered by this naturalist. They always ranged themselves in the form of a curve, the convexity of which was in proportion to the point touched by the violin bow, or towards the point which has an analogous situation; the nearer that each of these little heaps was to these points, the greater was its height, a circumstance which gave remarkable regularity to the figure. The interior of the small elevations thus obtained, were in constant motion during the continuance of the sound, and the duration of the vibrations might be observed on a plate from four to six inches in diameter. At one moment the height increased, at another it diminished, and the dust had the appearance of arranging itself in small globules, which rolled one above another.

We may now return from these very interesting facts, to others on a far larger scale. Near the Kom-el-Hett’an, or the mound of sandstone, which makes the site of one of the palaces and temples of Amunoph III., are two sitting colossi, which seem to assert the grandeur of ancient Thebes. The easternmost of the two is doubtless the statue reported by ancient authors to utter a sound at the rising of the sun. It was said to resemble the breaking of a metallic ring, or harp-string. The superstition of its Roman visitors ascribed the colossus to Memnon, and a multitude of inscriptions attributed to him miraculous powers. The memory of its daily performance is still retained in the traditional appellation of Salamat, “salutations,” by the modern inhabitants of Thebes. It is said to have “saluted” the emperor Adrian and his queen Sabina twice; but some persons, of course of humble rank, were disappointed on their first visit, and obliged to return another morning to satisfy their curiosity.

And yet there is ample reason to believe that the whole was an artifice of the priests. In the lap of the statue is a stone; and as sir Gardiner Wilkinson discovered, on examining the inscriptions, that one Ballilla had compared the sound the stone emitted, when struck, to the striking of brass, he determined to put the matter to the test. Accordingly, posting some peasants below, and ascending to the lap of the statue, he struck the sonorous block with a small hammer, and inquiring what was heard by the peasants, they answered, “You are striking brass.” “This,” says sir Gardiner, “convinced me that the sound was the sound that deceived the Romans, and led Strabo to observe that it appeared to him as the effect of a slight blow.” “The Theban priests,” he adds, “must have been considerable gainers by the credulity of those who visited their lion.”

The reader who may have taken the delightful walk from Tunbridge Wells to the High Rocks, and examined particularly those huge masses, will not fail to remember the one called “the Bell Rock.” On entering the space between this one and the next, it may be struck with a stick, when a sound will be heard like that produced, on a large metallic body being smitten.