Trans. .N. Y, Ac. Sct. 76 ' March 7, 
Mr. CHAMBERLIN suggested that such sand might emit louder 
sounds by its fall from a height. 
A VISITOR stated that he had lived eleven months on the shore of 
Costa Rica, on the Caribbean Sea, about seventeen miles south of 
Greytown, in longitude 86°, while engaged in laying out a railroad, 
in the year 1864. He was the only European at that locality. While 
lying in bed at about eleven o’clock, one evening in February of that 
year, he was very much surprised by a peculiar sound from the soli- 
tary sea-beach outside of the house, which resembled the footsteps of 
a person approaching. Wondering whether it was caused by some 
native, or by an animal, such as an alligator, he rose, took his ma- 
chete, and went out. The sound had ceased, the full moon was shin- 
ing upon the beach, but no person or cause of the sound could be ob- 
served. The following night, at about the same hour, curious sounds 
again arose outside, sometimes like a low roar or like the barking of a 
dog, and which seemed to come from the distance of about fifteen 
yards, near the water-line. He went out and shouted, searching in 
vain for the workmen who had broken the rules by leaving their huts. 
On his return to the house, the barking sound was repeated, some- 
times resembling the voices of two men conversing, and he thought 
himself possibly under the influence of some auditory delusion. The 
following night, a sound broke forth like that of hundreds of loud 
voices in the air, sometimes like that of singing, sometimes like the 
stringing of chords. Looking afterward for an explanation of these 
sounds, he found that the sand of the beach overlaid a stratum of 
massive coral reefs. At this point a tongue of land jutted far out from 
the coast-line, and, when the water retired at low tide, he could walk 
out a considerable distance upon these reefs. He found the whole 
beach and this coral stratum to be fissured all around the promon- 
tory by very deep clefts, and then concluded that the slapping of the 
water against the rocks, in the hollows beneath the beach, had proba- 
bly caused these sounds of rushing, barking of a dog, the stringing of 
instruments, and the sounds of voices in the air. At present, he ques- 
tioned whether a sonorous variety of sand might not also,have been 
involved in this curious phenomenon. 
March 17 1884. 
SECTION OF GEOLOGY. 
The President, Dr. J. S. NEwBErRY, in the Chair. 
Thirty-four persons present. 
