PROCEEDINGS OF SECTION E. 353 



I were occupied tracing the chart upon the ground. The day had 

 been remarkably fine, not a clovid was there in the heavens, nor 

 a breath of air to be felt. On a sudden we heard what seemed 

 to be the report of a gun fired in the distance of between 5 and 6 

 miles. It was not the hollow sound of an earthly explosion, or 

 the sharp cracking noise of falling timber, but in every way 

 resembled k discharge of a large piece of ordnance. On this we all 

 agreed, but no one was certain whence the sound proceeded. Both 

 Mr. Hume and myself had been too attentive to our occupation to 

 form a satisfactory opinion ; but we both thought it came from the 

 north-west. I sent one of the men immediately up a tree, but 

 he could observe nothing unusual. The country around him 

 appeared to be equally flat on all sides, and to be thickly wooded. 

 Whatever caused the report, it made a strong impression on all 

 of us, and to this day the singularity of such a sound in such a 

 situation is a matter of mystery to me." 



Again, when exploring in Central Australia, in 1844, Captain 

 Sturt records having heard similar noises in the far north of this 

 Colony. In Vol. II of his narrative he says — " I would also 

 advert to a circumstance I neglected to mention in its proper 

 place, but which may be as forcibly done now as at the time it 

 occurred. When Mr. Browne and I were on our recent journey 

 to the north, after having crossed the Stony Desert, being then 

 between it and Eyre's Creek, about 9 o'clock in the morning, we 

 distinctly heard a report as of a great gun discharged to the west- 

 ward, at the distance of half a mile. On the following morning, 

 nearly at the same time, we again heard the sound, but it now 

 came from a greater distance, and consequently was not so clear. 

 When I was on the Darling, in latitude 30°, in 1829, I was roused 

 from my work by a similar report; but neither on that occasion 

 nor on this could I solve the mystery in which it was involved. It 

 might, indeed, have been some gaseous explosion, but I never, in 

 the interior, saw any indication of such phenomena." 



The next published account, which appears to have been atmo- 

 spheric, is by Mr. James Allen, junior, v/ho, in his Journal of an 

 Experimental Trip of the " Lad// Avgusta " on the River Murray, 

 published in 1853, page 39, says: — " I may here mention a very 

 singular phenomenon which appeared at Swan Hill (on the Murray) 

 some two years ago, and which has been so well authenticated, 

 both by the natives and the settlers in the district, as to leave no 

 doubt as to its occurrence. About a month previous to the 

 Christmas of 1851 a small dark cloud was seen to rise above the 

 horizon, towards the north-west. Immediately after its appear- 

 ance it emitted a flash of fire, succeeded by a rumbling noise like 

 thunder, or the trampling of a large body of horse, but con- 

 siderably louder, and passed over to the east, dispersing itself like 



611". M 



