1870.] Proceedings of the Asiatic Society. 245 



to the sounds, and mentioned the theory of their being caused by 

 surf breaking upon the shore of the sea, and he stated also that 

 an expedition once started southwards to discover their origin, but 

 after going a certain distance southwards, had to return. 



As for the origin of the sounds, which are heard forty or fifty 

 miles from the seashore, it does not appear to me that any re- 

 liable theory has been started. The opinion that they proceed 

 from the operation of the sea and the rivers in the formation of 

 islands, it is impossible to accept ; for if the process of island-for- 

 mation had been going on so violently and so frequently as would 

 be indicated by the nature, and frequency of occurrence of these 

 sounds, the Bay of Bengal would have been by this time half-filled 

 with islands." 



Mr. Dall remarked that his attention was first called to th§se myste- 

 rious sounds, during the month of September, twelve or fourteen 

 years ago, at Furreedpore. He did not hear them, but was made 

 aware that the attention of the European residents there, had been 

 drawn to them, and not a little effort made to discover their cause. 

 The idea, that they were echoed surf sounds from a distant 

 shore, was never named or thought of. They did not appear 

 to come from the direction of the sea side ; which was also at too 

 great a distance from Furreedpore, to be looked to as the place for 

 sounds, that answered rather to the loud discharges of artillery 

 three or four miles away. Mr. Dall was at the time the guest of 

 Mr. Ravenshaw, (since made Commissioner of Cuttack), and he 

 said that he had been occasionally awaked from a sound sleep, at 

 midnight by these " guns." Such as he had heard, seemed to come 

 from the east, and Mr. Eavenshaw had been told of a boating par- 

 ty crossing the waters from Furreedpore towards Dacca, who had 

 first heard the "guns" in advance, and afterwards in their rear, 

 westwards. Slight earthquake movements being by no means un- 

 common throughout Lower Bengal, most thinkers thereabout were 

 inclined to ascribe the sounds to explosive gases stirred by some 

 sort of volcanic action, and escaping to the surface through the 

 waters, which, at that season, flooded the country in every direc- 

 tion, rendering the place of explosion difficult of observation by re- 

 liable witnesses. Native observation of the disturbance of the 



