2SS Ringing of Bells during 



of the world, utter dGafenlng clamours to terminate an eclipse of 

 the sun or moon, a phenomenon which strikes them with terror.* 

 I shall borrow what may be most plausibly said', in point of 

 fact, concerning the danger which results from ringing the bells 

 during a thunder storm, from an early volume of the Memoires 

 de PAcademie des Sciences. During the night between the 

 14th and 15th of April 1718, in the space comprehended be- 

 tween Landerneau and St Pol de Leon, in Brittany, the light- 

 ning fell upon twenty- four churches, and precisely ^ says Fonte- 

 nelle, upon those where they rang the bells to disperse it. M. 

 Peslandes, who transmitted the details to the Academy, adds — 



* I must here mention that, in thus considering noise tis a kind of panacea, 

 a singular discovery has been made, which I shall mention here, without 

 any scruple, in spite of its slight relation to the subject of thunder. If this 

 discovery is useful, this circumstance will prove an ample apology. Mr 

 Thomas Gage states, in his Travels, that the American population had re- 

 course to great noises to disperse a scourge less formidable, indeed, in ap- 

 pearance than thunder, but, in truth, much more hurtful. About the middle 

 of the last century. Gage was at Mixco, in the Province of Guatimala, when 

 a great cloud of locusts invaded the district, and threatened it with com- 

 plete destruction. Instead of employing against these insects the compli- 

 cated and unfortunately not at all efficacious means which are sometimes 

 had recourse to in the South of France, the magistrates encouraged the in- 

 habitants to use a host of drums, trumpets, horns, &c. The whole popula- 

 tion, thus armed, advanced against the devastated territory, and made the 

 air resound with the noise of their multifarious instruments. The noise 

 caused the locusts to retreat ; and thus were they pursued to the very ocean, 

 where they found a watery grave. 



This method of driving away locusts is also used in "Wallachia, Moldavia, 

 and Transylvania. (See Phil. Trans, for 1749.) It is not many years since 

 myriads of these insects having appeared in Bessarabia, the Military Gover- 

 nor of the province put a great number of the peasantry and soldiery in re- 

 quisition ; he supplied them with a number of copper vessels, with drums, 

 trumpets, speaking trumpets, &c. and set tliem forth in pursuit of the 

 devastating insects. The Governor entertained the odd fancy of conferring 

 the command of the expedition i|{)on the celebrated Russian poet and 

 fabulist, Pouschkin, who was then an exile at Kicheneff ; the poet, however, 

 declined the honour ; he would willingly have put words in the insects 

 mouths, but would not kill them. These effects of a tremendous noise upon 

 locusts, if well established, would be infinitely more valuable than that re- 

 corded by the historians of the Crusades, where they mention, that at the 

 siege of Acre, the army of the Francs brought down by their shouts the car- 

 rier pigeons, which, according to the Eastern custom, earned information to 

 \\ie besieged Mussulmen. 



