Savannah morning news. [volume] (Savannah) 1868-1887, 1885-01-04

A SINGING BEACH.
John Boyle O'ReiIly's Discovery on the
SusQnohanna.

John Boyle ORe1lly's Discovery on the
Susquehanna.
The discovery of a wonderful singing
beach at Athens, Pa, in the course of a
canoe trip down the Susquehanna, is thus
related by John Boyle O'Reilly in Outing
for January: Half way down this lovely
and lonely island passage we plunged in,
as l have many times said, and we had
no sooner struck bottom than Mr. Butler
uttered a strange shout and threw up his
hands. l was startled till looked at his
face, and then / was puzzled beyond
measure by his motions ana 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 l looked at him, aston
ishcd. began to feel the infection Of his
strange conduct. A thrill like soft music
ran through me. and seemed to tlngle in
my ears and under my tongue, and every
movement | made brought a repetition of
the ineXpresSibie sound, for. a sound it
was, that seemed to run all through me
like a musical echo.
what is it?" l cried at length. ''This
is WOnderfulD
cit is a musical beach--a singing
l.
should say it was the finest in the world!7
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
mellifuOus swim. We pushed the boats
ashore, and went in for the weird sweet
music Of the stream. 1t was enough to
make one howl with sheer sensuous en-
joyment. AS we pushed or scraped the
pebbly bottom with our feet, we felt or
heard-I hardly know which-a rich re-
sonance passing through us, clear and
sweet as the soft note of distant cow bells.
The slightest displacement of the gravel
brought it up, as if it had just escaped
from the earth.
When we had tried it hundred and
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. BE
remembered that divers can only talk I'M
der water by placing their heads on the
bottom.
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, ard get your hands or feet
or knees down; but not your chin. We
are both good swimmers, and we tried in
vain. While under water, on the dive, or
crawling along the bottom on hands and
knees, the river was a drear and silent
sluice. At last we got cur chins On the
bottom, each on q stone. and we heard it
oh! we heard such meIOdious discOrd,
such q mixture OF near and remote echo
like sweetness as can only be imagined in
dreams. The river became as flll Of mu-
sic as it was Of water and the inexpressi-
bic fusion Of notes played through our
senses like intOXicatiOn. cigOurney was
20 or so feet from me, and in deeper water,
but every sweep he gave the pebbles
sounded 10 me like thousand cOw-bells
melted into liquid harmony. Never until
we go to the same spot again shall we
hear such strange, suppressed, elfin mu-
sic.