MUSICAL SAND AND SINGING BEACHES."

Otago Witness, Issue 956, 16 May 1889, Page 32

MUSICAL SAND AND SINGING BEACHES."

The existence qt this phenomenon of musi. cal sand has recently be/En discovered at Studland Bay, Dorsetshire, and reported upon by Mr Carus-Wilson, F.G.S., to the Bournemouth Society of Natural SGienGe. Studland Bay musical sand is composed chiefly of quartz grains, more or less rounded, and to some extent polished, but many are angular. At various points between the Ferry and Studland there are patches of sounding sands which have been separated from the finer grains both by wind and wave action. When the foot is drawn over the surface, the sands give out a musical note. In walking over it in the ordinary manner a tingling sensation is felt, as of vibrations communicated to the body. Some of the layers are far more musical when the surface is. rubbed' than when it is struck.' The coarsest grains are found to emit the deepest' note. TMs musical 'saftd is: to be distinguished from'the be:dd,e& flapds, vbfrjlyin the sanje locality, are simply and not musical, as jalso from the rock known as photfoUte w *' cJJnfctiQfte,'? In a "singipg beach »

the musical notes are produced'by the 'friction pi the separate grains, and nqtas in the phonolites 1 from the solid rock. (A gdod example of a phonolite is described by Sir ,WyyiHe Thompson at]Bt. Michael's Mount, an island off the coast of Brazil, the rock literally "ringing like a bell" on being struck.) ' It may be' remembered that about 35 years ago Hugh Miller drew attention to his ' discovery of musical sand at the Bay of Laig, in the romantic Isle , of Eigg. (A model of this, island may be seen in the .Museum of Practical Geology in Jermyn street, London.) Hugh Miller described the Eigg musical sand as being derived from the disintegration of the beds of oolitic sandstone. He writes: " I struck the sand obliquely with my foot, where the surface lay dry and incoherent in the sun. The sound elicited was a shrill sonorous note, somewhat resembling that produced by a wax thread when tightened between the teeth and the hand, and tipped by the nail of the forefinger,"' From much experience of musical sand from different localities, Mr Carus-Wilson considers the Eigg sand the most musical he knows of. He has had a sample by him for two years, and it has not at any time become mute through changes of temperature, but s'eejms to gain rather than to lose in musical timbre and the clearness of the notes emitted. Up to the year of Hugh Miller's discovery only .two localities were known for musical sand ; these were Gebel ' Nakus, or the " Mountain of the Bell," near the Red Sea ; and RegEuwan, or the "Moving Sand," 40 miles

north of Oabul. Lieutenant Newbold, who

visited Gebel Nakus in the year 1850, describes the loose sands as it descends the slope of the hill producing a faint musical sound like the deeper chords of a violoncello at a distance. "The sound became more and [more distinct and apparently nearer, in successive and fast repeating notes

like those of a deep mellow church or convent bell. Lieutenant Newbold

then disturbed the sand near the summit with his feet, when the sounds became more treble and prolonged in tone, resembling the wild strains of an iEolian harp, but gradually becoming deeper and

louder until at length they rivalled the rumblings of distant thunder, and fairly caused the sand in which I sat to tremble in distinct vibrations." Like all other musical sari'ds, those of Gebel Nakus are mute when wet.

/To the ordinary observer, musical sand presents the same appearance as any other white sand, the musical and the mute being

frequently indistinguishable when placed side by side on the seabeach ; but under the microscope ifc is seen that the grains of the musical sand have had their angles rubbed o2 by natural attrition, their surfaces having become beautifully polished ; that they, are more or less uniform in size, and that, unlike other sands, they are perfectly , clean and free from fine particles or any coating of adherent substances whioh would produce the friction and consequently tlje sounds. No satisfactory theory of musical, sand i and "singing beaches "has hitherto been submitted, but the careful experiments arid observations of Mr Garus- Wilson indicate the direction in which an explanation will probably be found. This painstaking observer concludes that the emission of musical j sounds from sand is due to the rubbing j together of the surfaces of millions of perfectly clean grains qf quartz. Such grains must be free from angularities, roughness, or adherent {matter in the form of clinging fragments investing them. No sand can be musical which does not comply with these conditions. But these conditions are pre-. eminently characteristic of all the sands Mr Carus- Wilson has examined, as also of a large number of samples procured by Professor Bolton, who says : " These characters are so marked and prevalent that it would be difficult to distinguish from one another, ! without lables, specimens of musical sand from Massachusetts,. Lake Huron, the Hebrides, or the coast . of Denmark and Prussia." In conclusion it seems, not unlikely that in this, as in other cases, soience may help to give a basis of fact to poetio folk-lore which too often passes as pure superstition, by showing that the legends of syren-songs and weird music heard by the seashore are at least in some founded on genuine; audible phenomena. It should be added jtbat Mr Carus-Wilson's paper, has since been published in a separate form. — " Leisure Hour."