As also Weyprecht.
Lieut. Weyprecht, of the same expedition, says (antè, p. 14):—“Involuntarily we listen; such a spectacle must, we think, be accompanied with sound, but unbroken silence prevails, not the least sound strikes on the ear.”
Herr Carl Bock negatives noises in the case of Lapland Auroræ.
Herr Carl Bock, who accompanied the Laplanders visiting this country (at the Westminster Aquarium) in 1877-78, and who witnessed many brilliant auroral displays in Lapland, assured me he could trace no noise, except on one occasion, when he heard a sort of rustling, which he attributed to the wind. The Laplanders themselves did not associate any special noise with the Aurora.
Auroral noises in telephone. Ringing sound in vacuum-tube under influence of magnet.
It has been recently stated, in an article on the Telephone in ‘Nature,’ that Professor Peirce “has observed the most curious sounds produced from a telephone in connexion with a telegraph wire during the Aurora Borealis;” but no further details are given. In experimenting with a silicic fluoride vacuum-tube between the poles of an electro-magnet, I found, on the magnet being excited, that the capillary stream of blue light was decreased in volume and brightness, and at the same time from within the tube a peculiar whistling or slightly metallic ringing sound was heard.
Adverse conclusion as to noises accompanying Aurora.
I certainly have never met with an instance of noise accompanying an Aurora and traced to it. On the whole the balance of evidence seems quite adverse to any proof of noises proper ordinarily accompanying an Aurora.