Knoxville daily chronicle. [volume] (Knoxville, Tenn.) 1870-1882, 1879-01-16
Mountain Music"
Scientific American.

lduu I1OI0l O0 hOdu A1OUuLdlH, IL
Western North Carolina, which il
6,387 feet above the sea-level. Or
the eastern side of the Roam Noun
tain range is a kind af rough table
land about 1000 feet lower than
the summit of that mountain. On
the west the mountain descends into
the East Tennessee Valley, which
may be said to be about 1000 feet
lower than the same point. The
land on the top of the Roam is sin
gularly free from tree-growth, the
Canada balsam coming to certain
elevation and there ceasing. The
somewhat level top is covered with
a luxuriant growth of grass. l give
this description as preliminary to
what / intend to relate. The hotel
is on a plateau near glen, between
two peaks somewhat higher than the
general top of the mountain. Sew
eral of the cattle-tenders on the
mountain and also General Wilder
had spoken to US about what they
called mountain music. One
evening they said it was sounding
loud, and DR.. D. T. Boynton, of
Knoxville, Hon. J. M. Thorn
burgh, and myself, accompa-
MED General Wilder to the glen
to hear it. The sound was very
plain to the ear, and was not at all,
as described, like the humming of
thousands of bees, but like the in
cessant, continuous and combined
snap of two Leyden jars positively
and negatively charged. l tried to
account for it on the theory of bees
or flies, but the mountain people said
it frequently occurred after the bees
and flies had gone to their winter
homes, or before they came out. 1t
was always loudest and most pros
longed just before there would be a
thunderstorm in either valley, or
one passing over the mountain. L
used every argument l could to
persuade myself that it was simply
the result of some common cause,
and to shake the faith of the coun~
try people in its mysterious origin
but L only convinced myself that it
was the result from two currents of
air meeting each other in the suck
between the two peaks, where there
were no obstruction of trees, one
containing a greater, the other a
less amount of electricity, or
that the two currents coming to-
gether in the open plateau on the
high elevation, by their friction,
and being of different temperatures,
generated electricity. The "moun-
tain music" was simply the snap
ping caused by this friction and
this generation of electricity. |
Many have noted the peculiar snap
ping hum to be observed in great |
auroral displays, particularly those
of September, 1859, and February,
1872.
AS the amount OF electricity IN
the air-currents became equalized
or surcharged, they, descending to
either side, caused the thunder
storms used every day in the val
leys near the mountain, and some
times Immediately on the edge of
the timber surrounding the great
paid top. The air-currents of the
Western North Carolina mountains
md the East Tennessee Valley form
IN aerial tide, ebbing and flowing.
The heated air of the valley rises
rom nine in the morning until three
,r four in the afternoon, making a
slight easterly wind up and over the
Roam Mountain. AS night comes
On the current turns back to the
valley, almost invariably producing
j very brisk gale by three or four
,'clock in the morning, which, in its
urn, dies down to calm by seven,
Ind commences to reverse by nine
clock. This continual change of
he currents or air makes 1t an I'M
for any great malarlal
,courge to exist in the East Ten
lessee Valley, especially its north
eastern end.
The Roam Moudtain is one of the
,uriosities of nature. 1t is part of
he great range formed of metamor-
phic rocks which border on the true
formation from the Canadas
to Alabama. Though not so high
as the Black Mountains, in the same
county, it and many others of the
same range present popularity not
known to those higher peaks of the
eastern range, This popularity is
the vast tracts of land entirely de-
void of trees and mostly covered
with a luxuriant grass, much loved
by cattle. The highest range of the
thermometer, an accurate Govern
ment instrument, at the hotel, dur
NO the mast summer. was TAO