Note 28 — Chapter I · RELIGIOUS PHYSICS. (continued 2)

Mr. H. Russell, the explorer of the Pyrenees, remarks the fantastic effects produced by the moonlight in the mountains. As the moonlight replaced the previous shadow on the faces and the angles of the rocks, he says, in an account of the ascension of the peak of Eriste, they seemed so plainly to move that once he mistook one of them for a bear and cocked the revolver at his side. The same explorer remarks also the surprising transformations which natural objects undergo at nightfall and at daybreak. At dawn, he says, there is a sort of universal shiver which seems to animate everything; the sound of the neighbouring cascade changed frequently; at break of day, after having groaned and thundered alternately, it begins to scold. For in the morning in the mountains, he says, sounds gain magnitude, they swell, and torrents in especial lift their voices as if angry; with the arrival of the day the air becomes sonorous and sound carries farther. He has experienced this, he says, frequently, but does not understand the cause.—Alpine Club, 1887.