Personal Narrative Of Travels To The Equinoctial Regions Of America During The Years 1799-1804 - Volume 2 - By Alexander Von Humboldt And Aime Bonpland.
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The Missionaries
Call These Stones Laxas De Musica.
"It is witchcraft (cosa de
bruxas)," said our young Indian pilot, who could speak Spanish.
We
never ourselves heard these mysterious sounds, either at Carichana
Vieja, or in the Upper Orinoco; but from information given us by
witnesses worthy of belief, the existence of a phenomenon that seems
to depend on a certain state of the atmosphere, cannot be denied. The
shelves of rock are full of very narrow and deep crevices. They are
heated during the day to 48 or 50 degrees. I several times found their
temperature at the surface, during the night, at 39 degrees, the
surrounding atmosphere being at 28 degrees. It may easily be
conceived, that the difference of temperature between the subterranean
and the external air attains its maximum about sunrise, or at that
moment which is at the same time farthest from the period of the
maximum of the heat of the preceding day. May not these organ-like
sounds, which are heard when a person lays his ear in contact with the
stone, be the effect of a current of air that issues out through the
crevices? Does not the impulse of the air against the elastic spangles
of mica that intercept the crevices, contribute to modify the sounds?
May 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 music of the rocks there led to
the jugglery of the priests in the statue of Memnon?
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