November 3, 1893.] 



SVa<l CIN wEo 



245 



the opposite distance; or it may seem to wander irregu- 

 larly about, the whole passage lasting from a few seconds 

 to half a minute or more. We heard it repeatedly and 

 very distinctly here and at Yellowstone Lake, most frequent- 

 quentlj- at the latter place. It is usually noticed on still 

 bright mornings not long after sunrise, and it is louder 

 at this time of day; but I heard it clearly, though faintly, 

 once at noon when a stiif breeze was blowing. No scien- 

 tific explanation of this really bewitching phenomenon 

 has ever been published, although it has been several 

 times referred to by travellers, who have ventured vari- 

 ous crude guesses at its cause, varying from that com- 

 monest catch-all of the ignorant, "electricity," to the 

 whistling of the wings of ducks and the noise of the 

 ''steamboat geyser." It seems to me to belong to the 

 class of aerial echoes, but even on that supposition I can- 

 not account for the origin of the sound." 



{A Freliminary Report on the Aquatic Invertebrate 

 Fauna of the Yellowstone National Park, etc. Bulletin of 

 the United States Fish Commission for 1891, p. 215. 

 Published April 29, 1893). 



In a paper which was read before the Academy of 

 Science and Art of Pittsburg, Pa., March 18, 1892, enti- 

 tled "Mount Sheridan and the Continental Divide," I re- 

 corded mj' recollections of this phenomenon and repro- 

 duce them here with no alteration. Although the style 

 is, perhajJS, somewhat lacking in seriousness, the descrip- 

 tions were made from notes taken at the time and written 

 out while the memory of the facts was still fresh. In- 

 deed, even now, after a lapse of three years, I have a very 

 distinct recollection of the sound, vivid enough at least to 

 teach me how imperfect my description of it is. Words 

 describe an echo very inadequately when one is in igno- 

 rance of the original sound, and especially so when he is in 

 doubt as to whether the sound is the echo of a noise or 

 the noise itself. 



Following is the account of these overhead noises given 

 in the paj)er alluded to above and published soon after by 

 the academy: 



Overhead Noises. — The last topic which I shall discuss 

 in this somewhat desultory j^aper, is what I shall cab 

 overhead voices. 



Lest I be thought to be indulging in some ill-advised 

 or disordered fancy I shall first quote from Hayden's Re- 

 porifor 1872, on Montana, Idaho, Wyoming, and Utah. Mr. 

 F. H. Bradley, jj. 234, in that part of his narrative which 

 relates their visit to Yellowstone Lake, says: '-While get- 

 ting breakfast. [This was near the outlet of the lake] 

 we heard every few moments a curious sound, between 

 a whistle and a hoarse whine, whose locality and charac- 

 ter we could not at first determine, though we were in- 

 clined to refer it to water-fowl on the other side of the 

 lake. As the sun got higher the sound increased in force, 

 and it now became evident that gusts of wind were pass- 

 ing through the air above us, though the pines did not 

 as yet indicate the least motion in the lower atmosphere. 

 We started before the almost daily western winds, of 

 which these gusts were evidently the foreruners, had be- 

 gun to ruffle the lake." 



With this warrant I shall proceed to decribe as well as 

 I can my imj)ressions of these overhead noises, which ajD- 

 pear to belong exclusively to the lake region of the Park. 



The first time I heard them, or it, was on the 22d cf 

 July, about 8 .\. m., on Shoshone Lake. Elwood Hofer,- 

 our guide, and I had started in our boat for the west end 

 of the Lake. While engaged in making readj' for a sound- 

 ing on the northern shore, near where the lake grows nar- 

 row, I heard a strange echoing sound in the sky dying, away 

 to the southward, which appeared to me to be like a sound 

 that had already been echoing some seconds, before it had 

 aroused my attention, ao that I had missed the initial 



sound, and heard only the echo. I looked at Hofer curi- 

 ously for an explanation. He asked me what I thought 

 the sound was; I immediately gave it up and waited for 

 him to tell me, never doubting that a satisfactory explan- 

 ation would be forthcoming. For once this encyclopedia 

 of mountain lore failed to come ujd to date. His reply 

 was, that it was the most mysterious sound heard among 

 the mountains. From the first this sound did not appear 

 to me to be caused by wind blowing. Its velocity -was 

 rather that of sound. It had all the characters of an echo, 

 but of what I am not even yet prepared to give an alto- 

 gether satisfactory answer. I am afraid that my conclu- 

 sions are about as satisfactory as those of the Irishman, 

 who having' been sent out from camp in the night to in- 

 vestigate a strange noise believed to be made by some 

 wild beast, returned with the announcement that " it was 

 nothing at all, only a noise just." Upon our return to 

 camp I questioned both our guides and one of the pack- 

 ers, who had had much experience in the mountains. They 

 agreed substantially in what they had to say about it. 

 They had never heard it farther west than Shoshone Lake, 

 nor farther east than Yellowstone Lake, and not at all 

 north of these lakes. Hofer thought he had heard it once 

 about 30 miles south of Y'^ellowstone Lake. Dave Rhodes 

 had heard it usually shortly after sunrise and up to per- 

 haps half-past eight or nine o'clock. Hofer said that he 

 had heard it in the middle of the day but usually not later 

 than ten o'clock a. m. Neither of them remembered to 

 have heard it before sunrise. 



On the following morning we heard the sound very 

 plainly. It appeared to begin directly overhead and to 

 pass off across the sky, growing fainter and fainter to- 

 wards the southwest. It appeared to be a rather indefi- 

 nite, reverberating sound, characterized by a slight 

 metallic resonai; ce. It begins or is first j)erceived over- 

 head, at least, nearly every one, in attemjjting to fix its 

 location, turns his head to one side and glances upward. 

 Each time that I heard the sound on Shoshone, it apj^eared 

 to begin overhead, or as one of the men in the partj^ ex- 

 pressed^it "all over," and to move off to the southwest. 

 We did not hear the sound while on Lewis or Heart Lake. 

 The next time I heard the sound was on August -Ith, when 

 we were camped on the "Thumb" of Yellowstone Lake. 

 Professor Forbes and I were out on the lake making sound- 

 ings about 8 .\. Ji. The sky was clear and the lake was 

 quiet. The sun was beginning to shine with considerable 

 power. The sound seemed loudest when overhead, and 

 apparently passed off to the southward, or a little east of 

 south. It had the same peculiar quality as that heai-d on 

 Shoshone Lake, and is just as difficult to describe. There 

 was the same slight hint of metallic resonance, and what 

 one of the party called a kind of twisting sort of j-ow-yow 

 vibration. There was a faint resemblance to the hum- 

 ming of telegraph wires, but the volume was not steady 

 nor uniform. The time occupied by the sound was not 

 noted, but estimated shortly afterward to be probably a 

 half a minute As I heard it at this time it seemed to begin 

 at a distance, grow louder overhead where it filled the ujs-. 

 per air, and suggested a medley of wind in the tops of 

 jjine trees, and in telegraph wires, the echo of bells after 

 being repeated several times, the humming of a swarm of 

 bees, and two or three other less definite sources of sound, 

 making in all a composite which was not loud but easily 

 recognized, and not at all likely to be mistaken for any 

 other sound in these mountain solitudes, but which might 

 easily escape notice if one were surounded by noises. On 

 August 8th, at 10.15 a. m., Professor Forbes and I heard 

 the sound again while we were collecting in Bridge Bay 

 at the northern end of the lake. 



While on Shoshone Lake I ventured the suggestion 

 that the sound might be produced beyond the divide east 



