  The role of the acoustic continuum associated with compact sources in the
Sun's interior wave field is explored for a simple polytropic model. The
continuum produces a near-field acoustic structure -- the so-called `acoustic
jacket' -- that cannot be represented by a superposition of discrete normal
modes. Particular attention is paid to monochromatic point sources of various
frequency and depth, and to the surface velocity power that results, both in
the discrete f- and p-mode spectrum and in the continuum. It is shown that a
major effect of the continuum is to heal the surface wave field produced by
compact sources, and therefore to hide them from view. It is found that the
continuous spectrum is not a significant contributor to observable inter-ridge
seismic power.
