MUSICAL SANDS.

Digger (Invercargill RSA), Issue 43, 14 January 1921, Page 15

MUSICAL SANDS.

Sometimes, though not often or at many plaees in England, you may notice that as you walk over the dry sands they give out a very high, but not very loud squeaky note. There are 92 such places known, most of them in Ameriea, but 19 others are scattered about Asia or the desert sands of Africa, writes a scientifie correspondent to the " Children 's Newspaper." In these places the sands, when walked upon, give out quite a shrill, loud sound, something like the musical note made when you rub a wetted finger round the rim of a thin glass bowl. These singing sands have puzzled scientifie men a good deal, and have lately been the subject of much study. Specimens of them have been . collected, and it has often been found that after a time they lose their singing powers. They preserve them best if the sand is kept in a paper bag, but if placed in a tin or in a glass vessel they quickly lose them, especially if shaken about; and once they are lost the singing powers never return. The most favoured explana. tion at present is that some of the gases of the air stick to certain kinds of sand grains, and not to others ; and that when we walk over the sand or press it, these little cushions of air, millions of them, are disturbed and give forth tho musical sound.