13 b. - appears to
describe the icy sounds similar to what Ma or Head observed in North
America (see supra, ibid., p. 78).
"Muh-sueh-urh-tah-fan (= Muzart), that is Ice Mountain [Snowy according
to Prjevalsky], is situated between Ili and Ushi.... In case that one
happens to be travelling there close to sunset, he should choose a rock of
moderate thickness and lay down on it. In solitary night then, he would
hear the sounds, now like those of gongs and bells, and now like those of
strings and pipes, which disturb ears through the night: these are
produced by multifarious noises coming from the cracking ice."
Kumagusu Minakata has another note on remarkable sounds in Japan in
Nature, LIV., May 28, 1896, p. 78.
Sir T. Douglas Forsyth, Buried Cities in the Shifting Sands of the Great
Desert of Gobi, Proc. Roy. Geog. Soc., Nov. 13, 1876, says, p. 29: "The
stories told by Marco Polo, in his 39th chapter, about shifting sands and
strange noises and demons, have been repeated by other travellers down to
the present time. Colonel Prjevalsky, in pp. 193 and 194 of his
interesting Travels, gives his testimony to the superstitions of the
Desert; and I find, on reference to my diary, that the same stories were
recounted to me in Kashghar, and I shall be able to show that there is
some truth in the report of treasures being exposed to view."
P. 201, Line 12.
