354 PROCEEDINGS OF SECTION E. 



smoke. The day was remarkably bright and clear, with a per- 

 fectly unclouded sky. Its passage occupied from four to five 

 minutes, and the noise resulting from the discharge of the flash, 

 I am told, was most terrific. The natives were dreadfully alarmed, 

 and even to this day have a vivid recollection of the circumstance. 

 This account is not in the least exaggerated, and, if the occurrence 

 had not been well authenticated by respectable settlers in the 

 neighbourhood, I should not have described it in my journal. As 

 it is, it will be food for speculative minds, and interest those fond 

 of the marvellous." 



The Reverend J. E. Tenison Woods, in his work entitled 

 Geological Observations -in South Australia, published in 1862, 

 when referring to the lakes in the south-eastern district, appends 

 the following as a note to Chapter III: — " There is a curious cir- 

 cumstance connected with these swamps, which have an under- 

 ground drainage, which, in any other than a new country, would 

 surely have been invested with some ghostly legend. Every 

 evening, during spring and the early part of summer, distant 

 groanings are heard, like the lowing of a large herd of cattle, and 

 very resonant, near a few swamps, such, for instance, as that 

 situated near Mr. Donald McArthur's Station, Limestone Ridge. 

 Generally, three such echoing sounds are heard, and then about 

 half-an-hour's repose. I believe the sounds are entirely due to 

 a column of air resisting a column of water, which is draining 

 through the limestone, and finally being driven back or forwards, 

 according to the periodical increase of the weight of water. To 

 one ignorant of the cause, the sounds are mournful and startling 

 in the extreme, and they are not heard in the day, probably 

 because there are so many other sounds of cattle, &c., to mingle 

 and be confused with them. On the coast also, where there are 

 sandstones, noises like distant artillery are heard on windy days. 

 Dr. Phipson mentions these sounds as being very common on the 

 sandy parts of the coast of England, and is at a loss to assign a 

 cause. It seems, however, to be in some way connected with large 

 collections of sand. Sturt mentions that when in the Australian 

 Desert, surrounded by high hills of red sand of that inhospitable 

 country, he was startled one morning by hearing a loud, clear, 

 reverberating explosion, like the booming of artillery. The next 

 morning he heard it again. Tlie mornings were calm and clear, 

 and they were, at least, 600 miles from the settled districts. My 

 brother (Mr. T. A. Woods), when at Mount Serle, in the horseshoe 

 of Lake Torrens, which is a very sandy desert, has frequently 

 heard the same loud boomings on fine clear days. They seemed to 

 come with a startling echo from the sandhills, and reverberated for 

 a long time among the hills. Mitchell and Sturt have observed 

 the same thing in other parts of Australia. May the cause not 



