THE BIG NOISE

Evening Post, Volume CXXIV, Issue 61, 9 September 1937, Page 7

THE BIG NOISE

Few natural phenomena puzzled, and frightened, the ancients so much as thunder, of which we have had some experience lately, says the "Manchester Guardian." Even the wise Lucretius thought it best to offer choice of a variety of .explanations. It might be, he suggested, that when two clouds collide a bang naturally results. Or it might be that the clouds just flapped about noisily in the wind, as a canvas awning does. In extreme cases they iright tear with a rasp—again as canvas does. Or a cloud filled with wind might blow up with a tremendous pop, like a bursting bladder. Or the wind might howl through the branches of a cloud as through a forest. Or waves in the clouds might roar like the breaking of surf on the sea-shore. Or if lightning fell from one cloud to another, and tee second cloud were dry, it might burn with a loud crackle. Or, finally, the tumbling about of ice in the clouds would obviously be noisy. With all those explanations to go at terrified pagans ought to have felt a little more reassured; thunder might be a big noise, but it was hardly necessary to assume a supernatural origin for it.

-<_.