ACOUSTICS EXTRAORDINARY.

Lake Wakatip Mail, Issue 1516, 22 January 1886, Page 3

ACOUSTICS EXTRAORDINARY.

The " Ear of Dionysius," in Sicily, is a long limestone tunnel, with an enormous mouth or entrance, and that rounded character of the walls from which I infer its natural origin. It is about 70 feet high for a length of about 200 yards, after which the roof descends At the further extremity of 1 the high arch, and about 60 feet from J the floor, is a small concealed chamber | excavated in the rock, in which, accord- | ing to tradition, Dionysius sat to listen to the conversation of his prisoners below, who whispered stealthily of their plots and other doings. It is a fact that sounds produced below are so reverberated that a slight whisper, if uttered cearjone of the walls, can be heard in this chamber at above 200 jieet distance. I heard Buch whispers there myself, and the tearing of paper in the middle and other parts of the tunnel. On the sea-shore near the port is the mouth of anotheT limestone tunnel of unknown mysterious length. According to the old classic legend, it extedi ■ i beneath the sea to Elis, in Gre:ce, where once upon a time the blushing Aretbusa was surprised while bathing by Alpheus, and boA were changed to the river, which there disappears and here pours forth upon the sands as the famous fountain of Arethusa. At the time of my visit the sacred pool was the public washing-tub of Syracuse.— Picturesque Europe.