Abstract
I HAVE read with interest Dr. Darwin's communication, in NATURE for October 31, on “The Barisál Guns and Mist Pouffers,” and his request that the readers of your journal should give accounts of their own experiences in this matter. I refer him to the Theosophist magazine, vol. ix. p. 705, and vol. xi. p. 409, for two articles upon my personal observations at Barisál village itself, in the Gangetic delta. All the various theories until then propounded by men of science to account for the phenomenon in question were severally reviewed and pronounced inadequate. I had intended writing a third and final article, but found it impracticable to throw any further light upon this most interesting problem, and so abstained. Dr. Darwin is quite wrong in supposing that the sound of the “Barisal Gun” is “dull and distant,” and that “it does not resemble artillery.” However the like sounds may seem to the Ostend lighthouse-keeper, they were so sharp and loud that I thought the “evening gun” was being fired at a cantonment in the village, and asked a friend standing by if that were so. I shall not encroach on your space to go into details, since the back volumes of the Theosophist may be consulted at the British Museum, and Dr. Darwin will make such use of them as he sees fit.
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OLCOTT, H. The Barisál Gun. Nature 53, 130 (1895). https://doi.org/10.1038/053130b0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/053130b0
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