Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 17.djvu/793

Rh by quickly succeeding impulses, approach in some degree to being musical tones. Water, in particular, has the property of giving forth sounds of this character, which vary in quality from the dull moaning of the waves to the charming warble of the gurgling brook and the pattering of the cascade. The great drops of the shower produce their melodies also, which in the cave of Staffa make a genuine water-music.

Among the natural sounds of obscure origin with which mythology and science have been occupied are the rustlings and so-called voices which seem to come from the air, sometimes from the bosom of the earth, and which have been remarked upon in all ages. Autenrieth refers them to the same class as the noises like thunder or the firing of cannon, which the hearers often fail to trace to an apparent cause. Sometimes they seem like the trampling of horses, or the roll of drums, or the clangor of trumpets; at other times, like human voices. In the last case, the sounds are those which are common to all men, and may be interpreted by each hearer as in his own language. To the Romans they spoke Latin, to the Greeks Greek, to the Scotch Highlanders Gaelic. History has notices of these sounds; the Bible descriptions attribute to them a religious significance. They are referred to when it is related that Samuel heard the voice of Jehovah three times in the temple; when Habakkuk, pronouncing the curse on Babylon, spoke of the stones crying out in the walls; when the glad voices of the mountains and waves are mentioned in the Psalms; in the account in John of the voice that cried out from heaven when Jesus went into Jerusalem, and the people wondered whether it was thunder or an angel; in the story of the conversion of St. Paul; and in the account of the pouring out of the Holy Spirit on the day of Pentecost. The profane history of antiquity also tells of voices from above, and ascribes to them a supernatural significance and an influence over the hearts of men. Instances in point are the sounds of battle, and the clash of arms, and the neighing of horses, heard by night, according to Pausanias, on the field of Marathon; the address of the god Pan to the Athenian ambassadors to Sparta, told of by Herodotus; and the voices heard by both armies after the battle of the Romans with the sons of Tarquin. The Germans have myths of the din made by the war-god and his marching hosts, of the wild huntsmen, of strange cries and of the barking of dogs heard in the air; and the French have stories not unlike them.

Accounts have been given in more recent times of air-noises of another kind, or "devil's music," which have been heard in the East, in Europe, and in America, and of which discussions may be found in the acoustic letters of Richard Pohl and in the "Musical Conversations Lexicon" of Gathy. The devil's voice in Ceylon is heard in clear nights on the hills and among the valleys in different places, passing quickly from one spot to another, sometimes resembling the barking of a dog,