7 74 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



sometimes a mournful human voice, and has heen described by several 

 travelers, English, Dutch, and German. Autenrieth, Richard Pohl, 

 Schubert, and others have endeavored to trace it to natural causes, but 

 Schleiden gives up a satisfactory explanation of it. Persian ti'aditions 

 tell of a similar phenomenon, the cry of the Gule which is heard in 

 the mountain-region of that country, together with the noises of the 

 ringing of metals, the sound of drums, and the trampling of horses. 

 The traveler Marco Polo, in the thirteenth century, told of noises of 

 weapons and horsemen, the voices of men and musical harmonies 

 which were heard frequently in the desert of Lob ; and his contem- 

 porary, the monk Rubriquis, described the regions north of the Altai 

 Mountains as the scene of similar manifestations. The devil's voice 

 in Ceylon has been ascribed to the effects of excessive heat ; these 

 sounds of the more northern regions are possibly due to the dryness of 

 the climate. The region of Mount Sinai is rich in curious harmonious 

 sounds. 



Unaccounted-for sounds have been accompanied in some of the 

 hotter parts of Africa by a light, which may indicate an electrical 

 origin ; this has been noticed by several observers on a mountain near 

 Cape Town. A manifestation, which may be called a sound mirage, 

 was described in the " Magasin Pittoresque " in 1852 by an English 

 writer, who related that while traveling in the desert at a time when 

 the atmosphere was clear, and the heat glowing, and everything was 

 quiet, he heard for about ten minutes a joyous sound like the ringing 

 of church-bells. He suggested that the organs of hearing might have 

 been set in vibration through the extreme dryness of the air. (King- 

 lake, in "Eothen," relates a similar incident, if this is not the same.) 

 The missionary Cabruta heard on the Orinoco a sound like the rever- 

 berations of cannon coming alternately from opposite directions, to 

 which no one could assign an origin ; and Humboldt says that the 

 Indians of the same regions tell of the sound of the holy trumpets 

 blown by the Great Spirit. 



Similar phenomena have been noticed at different places in Eu- 

 rope, and people remote from each other have alike referred them 

 to a supernatural origin. Among them were the sounds in the air 

 heard by a priest at Aufacq, near Beauvais, of which an account is 

 given in a manuscript of the last century, and the noise of the Arlecan 

 which was heard in a churchyard near Aries. The Slavic peoples on 

 the Adriatic and the Scandinavians of the North are equally inclined 

 to believe in such manifestations and to notice them. The mirage of 

 the Fata Morgana is sometimes accompanied with a sound like thun- 

 der. The Scottish Highlanders hear a mournful sound in the clefts 

 of the rocks which they ascribe to an evil spirit. Arndt tells of soft 

 tones and cries emanating from the mountains of the Orkney and 

 Shetland Islands. Distinct cracking sounds are heard on the Adriatic 

 Sea. 



