156 



DISCOVERY 



Musical Sands 



By Cecil Carus-Wilson, F.R.S.E., F.G.S. 



For some centuries past travellers and others have 

 referred from time to time to the existence of sands 

 which, under favourable conditions, produce mysteri- 

 ous music, and many of these references may be found 

 in my paper on " Musical Sand," read before the 

 Bournemouth Society of Natural Science in 1888. 



Up to 1851) , when Hugh Miller discovered musical 

 sand at the Isle of Eigg, there were but two other 

 generally well-known localities where these sands 

 occurred. These were Jebel Nagous, or " Mountain 

 of the Bell," in the desert of Mount Sinai, and Reg 

 Ruwan — or Rig-i-Rawan— the " Moving Sand," about 

 forty miles north of Corbul. 



The former had been visited by Seetzen in 1812, 

 and by Gray, Ehrcnberg, Wellsted, Newbold, and 

 others subsequently, and the latter by Sir Alexander 

 Bums in 1836. 



Since Hugh Miller's time, however, musical sands 

 have been found on beaches at many places. Pro- 

 fessor Bolton and Dr. Julien, through the Smithsonian 

 Institution in 1884, recorded their occurrence at no 

 less than seventy-four localities on the Atlantic coast 

 of the United States. Since discovering these sands 

 at Studland Bay in 1888, I have found them at many 

 places, and other observers have also added to the 

 list. 



My observations and researches have been carried 

 out with the musical sands found on sea-beaches 

 and those produced artificially in the course of my 

 investigations only, since I have been unable to 

 \-isit any of the desert examples referred to. 



Lieutenant Newbold \'isitcd Jebel Nagous in 1840 

 and made some most interesting observations. His 

 Bedouin guide ascended the slope, and the loose 

 sand thus set in motion produced " a faint musical 

 sound resembling the deeper chords of a violoncello 

 at a distance." Newbold and his friend Mr. Shute 

 then climbed up the face of this loose sand and seated 

 themselves " at the base of the mural cliffs which 

 crest the summit," and from this point they watched 

 the sand they had set in motion roll down the slope 

 " in gradually widening lines to the base." " The 

 disturbance of the upper layers of sand went on 

 increasing on every side, somewhat resembling the 

 effect produced on the surface of still water on dropping 

 a stone into it. . . . About two minutes after the 

 sand had first been set in motion a faint rustling 

 sound, as it rolled down, struck our ears ; then the 

 low, deep, distant, musical tone we had first heard, 

 which generally became more and more distinct, and 

 apparently nearer, in successive and fast-repeating 



notes, whose sound partook of those of a deep, mellow 

 church or convent bcU, and of the vibrations of a 

 stringed instrument." Newbold then disturbed the 

 sand near the summit with his feet, and the notes 

 became higher and more prolonged, " resembling 

 the wild strains of an /Eolian harp, but gradually 

 becoming deeper and louder, until at length they 

 rivalled the continued rumbling of distant thunder," 

 and caused the sand on which they sat to tremble 

 in distant vibrations. The sensations experienced were 

 similar to those one might expect to feel if seated on 

 the body of some gigantic stringed instrument while 

 the bow was being slowly drawn across the strings. 



Newbold's opinion on the cause of these remarkable 

 effects concided with that of Lieutenant Wellsted, a 

 former observer in 1830. They believed the sounds 

 were due to the action of the wind upon the waves 

 of sand as they flowed down the slope. In my paper 

 of 1888 I showed that this explanation was untenable. 



In 1889 Professor Bolton visited Jebel Nagous, 

 and made observations which were graphically de- 

 scribed in a paper read before the American Association 

 for the Advancement of Science. 



As one might have expected, similar sounding 

 sands occur in other parts of the desert where the same 

 conditions prevail, and Professor Bolton discovered 

 another example which Dr. Julien named " Bolton's 

 Bell Slope." In 1912 Mr. Harding King referred to 

 similar phenomena occurring in the Libyan Desert. 



Another noted example is the El Bramador, or 

 " Roarer or Bellower," in Chili, mentioned by Danm 

 in 1835, and described by Mr. M. H. Gray in Nature 

 in 1909. The " Barking Sands " of the Hawaiian 

 Islands are also well known. 



It would appear from these, and many other re- 

 ferences which it is unnecessary to give now, that 

 the effects produced by the accimiulations of loose 

 sand are similar in all cases, and differ materially 

 from the sounds emitted by the musical sands of 

 beaches when struck or agitated by artificial methods. 



Describing the musical sands of Eigg, Hugh Miller 

 wrote : "I struck it obliquely with my foot, where 

 the surface lay dry and incoherent in the sim, and 

 the sound elicited was a shrill, sonorous note, some- 

 what resembling that produced by a waxed thread 

 when tightened between the teeth and the hand 

 and tipped by the nail of the forefinger." 



In 1884 Professor Bolton and Dr. Julien conducted 

 some interesting experiments on the " singing beach " 

 at Manchester-by-the-Sea, Massachusetts, witli a view 

 of arriving at some definite conclusion in regard to 

 its peculiar characteristics. 



Hugh Miller found that the loudest sounds were 

 produced by drawing the hand slowly through the 

 incoherent sand on the beach at Eigg, while Professor 



