Mr.  “Etienne” was the last guest at B——­, and arrived the evening before the house was vacated.  He afterwards told Lord Bute that he had brought, without the knowledge of any one in the house, two seismic instruments, but that they recorded nothing, and that during the night he heard a sound as of a gun being fired outside the house.  This he attributed to some poacher unknown, an explanation which seems hardly probable, as at this time of year there is nothing to shoot except rabbits.  One never hears of a poacher shooting rabbits, and in any case, he would hardly do so in the immediate neighbourhood of an inhabited house, and discharging his gun once only.

Mr.  “Etienne’s” experiments are the more interesting because that among many suggestions made by Sir J. Crichton Browne, the only one which had not been already considered, was the use of seismic instruments.  This—­the house being within the seismic area—­seemed so reasonable, that Miss Freer at once entered into correspondence with the well-known Professor Milne, with a view to experiment in this direction.  The following is from his reply:—­

“May 15th, 1897.—­I was much interested in your note of the 13th, and fancy that the sounds with which you have to deal may be of seismic origin.  Such sounds I have often heard, and the air waves, if not the earth waves, can be mechanically recorded.  What you require to make the records is a seismograph with large but exceeding light indices, or a Perry tromometer....  The reason I think that the sounds are seismic is, first, on account of their character, and secondly, because you are in one of the most unstable parts of Great Britain, where between 1852 and 1890, 465 shocks (many with sounds) were recorded.  Lady Moncrieff, when living at Comrie House in 1844, often heard rumblings and moanings, and such sounds, possibly akin to the ’barisal guns’[H] of Eastern England, often occur without a shake.  The mechanism of this production may be due to slight movements on a fault face, and they may be heard, especially in rocky districts, in very many countries....”

Miss Freer’s reply was an urgent request that machinery and an operator might be at once sent up to B——.  Professor Milne replied that delicate instruments, such as he himself employed, could only be used by one other person, but suggested that she should hire from a well-known London firm what are known as “Ewing’s-type” seismometers, adding, “I doubt whether these will record anything but movements to which you are sensible.”

Miss Freer’s designs, however, were frustrated, for on applying for an extension of tenancy for this purpose, Captain S——­, the proprietor, peremptorily forbade the continuance of scientific observation—­a remarkable parallel to his father’s refusal to permit the use of the phonograph when suggested by Sir William Huggins.

In relation to his experiments at B——­ Mr.  “Etienne” writes:—­