The Sound of Distant Gun-fire

Abstract

MANY observations similar to the interesting one recorded by Mr. Carus-Wilson were made during the war. The sounds of gun-fire were heard plainly in excavations, though they were inaudible on the ground above. They were even heard by persons lying with their heads on the ground, but not when sitting up. Mallet remarks that the noise of the firing at the Battle of Jena in 1806 was heard as a low murmur in the fields about Dresden, at a distance of 92 miles, but he adds that “it is almost certain that in this case the noise was transmitted through the earth” (Brit. Assoc. Rep., 1851, p. 283). Grouchy and his officers at Sart-les-Walhain are said to have heard the firing at Waterloo. They “placed their ears to the ground and thus detected plainly the muffled boom of distant guns”.