196 J. B. CLELAND. 



The noises are heard most frequently at nightfall, during 

 the night, and in the early morning, especially in the hot 

 months of March, April, and May, though in the towns of 

 the Pangasinan province they are confined almost entirely 

 to the rainy season. They are compared in 70 per cent, of 

 the records to thunder. With rare exceptions, they seem to 

 come from the mountains inland. The instances in which 

 the noises show any connection with earthquakes are few, 

 and observers usually distinguish between them and the 

 low rumblings which occasionally precede earthquakes. It 

 is a common opinion among the Filipinos, that the noises are 

 the effect of waves breaking on the beach or into caverns, 

 and that they are intimately connected with changes 

 in the weather, generally with impending typhoons. Father 

 Saderra Maso is inclined to agree with this view in certain 

 cases. The typhoons in the Phillipines sometimes cause 

 very heavy swells, which are propagated more than a 

 thousand kilometres, and hence arrive days before the wind 

 acquires any appreciable force. He suggests that special 

 atmospheric conditions may be responsible for the great 

 distances to which the sounds are heard, and that their 

 apparent inland origin may be due to reflection, possibly 

 from the cumulus clouds which crown the neighbouring 

 mountains, while the direct sound-waves are shut off by 

 walls of vegetation or inequalities in the ground." 



The frequency with which various observers have heard 

 these sounds in Australia will, I think, exclude the likeli- 

 hood of their being due to meteors. Sturt hearing them 

 about the same hour on two successive mornings is likewise 

 against such a cause. The report from a meteor that Major 

 Mitchell heard can, therefore, be excluded from the cate- 

 gory we are considering. Of the eleven individual Aus- 

 tralian records I have given, eight occured between 6*30 

 and 11 p.m.: Sturt's three are the exceptions, two being 



