The Monitor. [volume] (Woodstown, N.J.) 1884-1892, 1885-01-16
4 SINGING BEACH.
John Boyle O'ReiIley's Discovery ON
the Susquehanna.

The discovery of a wonderful singing
beach at Athens, Pa, in the curse of a
canoe trip down the Susquehanna. is thus
related by John Boyle O'Reilly in Outiag
for January:
Halfway down this lovely and lonely
island passage We plunged in. as | have
many times said. and we had no sooner
struck bottom than Mr.. Butler uttered a
strange shout and threw up his hands. I
was startled till | looked at his face, and
then ! was puzzled beyond measure by his
motions and expressions. With his hands
above his head, he seemed to be dancing on
the bottom of the river, and with every
step he gave a shout of pleasure. While |
looked at him astonished, ! began to feel
the infection of his strange conduct. A
thrill like soft music ran through me, and
seemed to Jingle in my ears and under my
tongue. and every movement | made
brought a repetition of the inexpressible
sound, for a sound it was, that seemed to run
all through me like a musical echo.
"What is it p / cried at length. This
is wonderful :"
1T is a musical beach-a singing beach,
answered ~Sigourney. .And | should say
it was the finest in the world = And then
he said-for, by strange chance. he knew
something about such a queer thing-.I
believe there are only two or three singing
beaches known in the whole world, and
this certainly must be the best
You may be sure we fingered over that
mellifluous swim. We pushed the boats
ashore, and went in for the weird sweet
music of the stream. II was enough to
make one now with sheer sensuous enjoy
ment. As we pushed or seraped the peb-
bly, bottom with our feet we felt or heard, !
hardly know which, a rich resonance pass
ing through us, clear and sweet as the
soft note of distant cowbells. The slight
est displacement of the gravel brought it
up, as if it had just escaped from the earth.
When we had tried it a hundred and
a thousand times, it occurred to us that
neither could hear the note caused by the
other; we only heard the sound of our
own feet. Again the tenacious memory of
my friend found an explanation. He re-
membered that divers can only talk under
water by placing their heads on the bot
tom.
Another discovery here You can't get
your head to the bottom of a four-foot
stream, unless you catch hold of a stone on
the bottom and pull yourself down. You
can dive and get your hands or feet or
knees down, but not your chin. We were
both good swimmers, and we tried in vain.
While under water, on the dive, or crawl
ing along the bottom Oh hands and knees,
the river was a drear and silent sluice. At
last we got our chins on the bottom, each
on a stone. and we heard it-oh we heard
such %melodious discord, such a mixture of
near and remote echo-like sweetness as can
only be imagined in dreams. The river
became as full Of music as it was of water.
and an inexpressible fusion of notes played
through our senses like intoxication. ST.
Courtney was twenty or thirty feet from me
and in deeper water, but every sweep lie
gave the pebbles sounded to me like a
thousand cowbells melted into liquid har-
mony. Never until we go to the same spot
again shall we hear such strange. sup
pressed. elfn music.