24 Musical Sand of Eigg. 



been alluded to sparingly through the writings of a thousand 

 years, and it is known to exist in two localities in the East — 

 viz., Gebel Nakus, or the "Mountain of the Bell," near 

 the Red Sea ; and Reg Ruan, or the " Moving Sand," 

 forty miles north of Cabul. It was discovered in Eigg, a 

 picturesque islet off the West Coast of Scotland, by Hugh 

 Miller, in 1850. Mr. Miller has written of it — " I struck it 

 obliquely with my foot where the surface lay dry and incoherent 

 in the sun, and the sound elicited was a shrill sonorous note, 

 somewhat resembling that produced by a waxed thread when 

 tightened between the teeth and the hand, and tipped by the 

 nail of the forefinger." 



I visited the place while cruising on the West Coast in 1878, 

 and found the sand as described by Miller, but I thought the 

 sound more like a kind of whistling noise, rather resembling 

 that made by quickly drawing one piece of gros grain silk 

 over another. It is quite distinct from the neighbouring beds 

 of ordinary sand. I brought away some, a portion of which I 

 now present to the Society, together with a copy of the paper 

 by Mr. Wilson, mentioned below. The sand is now " mute," 

 all musical sand becoming so when handled or soiled. Mr. 

 Carus Wilson, F.G.S., Bournemouth, in a paper published 

 last year, mentioned numerous localities now known where 

 more or less musical sand occurs, but described the Eigg sand 

 as the most musical he knew of. Mr. Wilson attributed the 

 sonorous qualities to smoothness of surface of the particles, 

 uniformity in their size, and freedom from fine dust adhering 

 to them. Under the microscope the Eigg sand appears as 

 particles of perfectly clear rock crystal. Mr. Carus Wilson has 

 endeavoured to manufacture artificial musical sand on his 

 theory, but only with a moderate approach towards a successful 

 imitation of the natural product. 



