274 LETTERS ON NATURAL MAGIC. 



duce a different impression on the ear of the other. But 

 if both parties are placed in this new atmosphere, their 

 tones of communication will suffer the most remarkable 

 change. The two extreme positions, where such effects 

 become sufficiently striking, are in the compressed air of 

 the diving-bell, when it is immersed to a great depth in 

 the sea, or in the rarefied atmosphere which prevails on 

 the summit of the Himalaya or the Andes. 



In the region of common life, and even at the stillest 

 hour of night, the ear seldom rests from its toils. When 

 the voice of man and the bustle of his labours have ceased, 

 the sounds of insect life are redoubled, the night breeze 

 awakens among the rustling leaves, and the swell of the 

 distant ocean, and the sounds of the falling cataract or of 

 the murmuring brook, fill the air with their pure and 

 solemn music. The sublimity of deep silence is not to 

 be found even in the steppes of the Volga, or in the 

 forests of the Orinoco. It can be felt only in those lofty 



regions 



Where the tops of the Andes 

 Shoot soaringly forth. 



As the traveller rises above the limit of life and motion, 

 and enters the region of habitual solitude, the death-like 

 silence which prevails around him is rendered still more 

 striking by the diminished density of the air which he 

 breathes. The voice of his fellow-traveller ceases to be 

 heard even at a moderate distance, and sounds which 

 would stun the ear at a lower level make but a feeble 

 impression. The report of a pistol on the top of Mont 

 Blanc is no louder than that of an Indian cracker. But 

 while the thinness of the air thus subdues the loudest 

 sounds, the voice itself undergoes a singular change : the 

 muscular energy by which we speak experiences a great 

 diminution, and our powers of utterance, as well as our 

 power of hearing, are thus singularly modified. Were the 



