This element, first respected only as the representative of the sun, in time became itself the object of adoration among the Chaldeans; and Eusebius relates the following circumstance with respect to it. The Chaldeans asserted that their god was the strongest and most powerful of all gods; since they had not met with any one that could resist his force; so that whenever they happened to seize upon any deities, which were worshipped by other nations, they immediately threw them into the fire, which never failed of consuming them to ashes, and thus the god of the Chaldeans came to be publicly looked upon as the conqueror of all other gods: at length a priest of Canopus, one of the Egyptian gods, found out the means to destroy the great reputation which fire had acquired. He caused to be formed an idol of a very porous earth, with which pots were commonly made to purify the waters of the Nile; the belly of this statue, which was very capacious, was filled with water, the priest having first made a great many little holes and stopped them with wax. He then challenged the fire of the Chaldeans to dispute with his god Canopus. The Chaldeans immediately prepared one, and the Egyptian priest set his statue on it; no sooner did the fire reach the wax than it dissolved, the holes were opened, the water passed through, and the fire was extinguished. Upon this a report was soon spread, that the god Canopus had conquered and destroyed the god of the Chaldeans. As a memorial of their victory, the Egyptians always afterwards made their idols with very large bellies. The celebrated sphinx, still more interesting as a wonderful production of art, is said to have been made by an Egyptian king, in memory of Rhodope of Corinth, with whom he was passionately in love: yet it was subsequently considered as an oracle, which, if consulted at the rising of the sun, gave prophetic answers. There has lately been discovered a large hole in the head; in which the priests are supposed to have concealed themselves, for the purpose of deluding the people. At sunrise music was said to be heard. The latter might even occur from natural causes. Messieurs Jomard, Jollois, and Devilliers heard at _sunrise_, in a monument of granite, placed in the centre of that spot on which the palace of Karnak stood, a noise resembling that of a string breaking; this was found on attentive examination to proceed from a natural phenomenon, occurring near the situation of the sphinx. Of this circumstance the ingenuity of the priests would no doubt be sure to avail themselves; and this may also account for the hour of sunrise being chosen for the oracular responses.