2©4 On peculiar Noises occasionally heard 



however trifling the distance, the intensity of the repetition is 

 sensibly diminished, and within a few feet ceases to be heard. 

 Under the idea that the ground was hollow beneath, the soil 

 has been dug up to a considerable depth, but without discover- 

 ing any clew to the solution of the mystery. On looking round 

 for any external cause, I felt inclined to attribute the phenome- 

 non to the reflecting powers of a semicircular low garden-wall, 

 a few yards in the rear of the listener, and in front of the 

 speaker, although there was no apparent connexion between the 

 transmission of sound from the gravel-walk and this wall. The 

 gardener, however, to whom I suggested this, assured me that 

 I was wrong, since within his memory the wall had been taken 

 down and rebuilt, and that in the interim there was no perceptible 

 alteration in the unaccountable evolution of these singular 

 sounds. 



On the smooth surface of ice, and on a much larger scale, 

 a somewhat similar effect has been observed. For an instance, 

 I shall refer to the animated account extracted from Head's 

 Forest Scenes, a little work scarcely, if at all, inferior to 

 the spirited rough notes of his brother of galloping notoriety- 

 " March 7. — The frost continued, and the cold increased to a 

 very low temperature, the effect of which upon the extended 

 sheet of ice which covered the bay, was somewhat remarkable. 

 It cracked and split from one end to the other, with a noise 

 which might have been mistaken for distant artillery ; but this, 

 when it is taken into consideration that the sheet of ice was 

 15 or 16 square miles in area, and 3 feet thick, may be easily 

 imagined. Nor was this all : I was occasionally surprised bv 

 sounds produced by the wind, indescribably awful and grand. 

 Whether the vast sheet of ice was made to vibrate and bellow 

 like the copper which generates the thunder of the stage, or 

 whether the air rushing through its cracks and fissures made a 

 noise, I will not pretend to say ; still less to describe the vari- 

 ous intonations, which in every direction struck upon the ear. 

 A dreary undulating sound wandered from point to point, per- 

 plexing the mind to imagine whence it came, or whither it went, 

 and whether aerial or subterranean, sometimes like low moan- 

 ing, and then swelling into a deep-toned note, as produced by 

 some ^olian instrument, it being in real fact, and without mc- 



