ALFRED R. WALLACE.
In 1891, at the urgent request of Prof. H. Sidgwick, President of the Society for Psychical Research, Prof. Barrett undertook, with considerable reluctance, to make a thorough examination of the subject of "dowsing" for water and minerals by means of the so-called "divining rod." At the time he fully believed that a critical inquiry of this kind would speedily show all the alleged successes of the dowser to be due either to fraud or a sharp eye for the ground. As the inquiry went on, to his surprise he found that neither chicanery, nor clever guessing, nor local knowledge, nor chance coincidence could explain away the accumulated evidence, but that something new to science was really at the root of the matter. This result was so startling that Prof. Barrett had to pursue the investigation for six years before venturing to publish his first report, which appeared in the Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research, Part xxxii., 1897. This was followed by a second report published some years later, in which he gave a fresh body of evidence on the criticisms of some eminent geologists to whom he had submitted the evidence. The reports were reviewed in Nature with [pg 206] considerable severity, and some erroneous statements were made, to which Prof. Barrett replied. The editor, Sir Norman Lockyer, at first declined to publish Prof. Barrett's reply, and to this Wallace refers in the following letter.
TO PROF. BARRETT
Parkstone, Dorset. October 30, 1899.
My dear Barrett,— ... Apropos of Nature, they never gave a word of notice to my book[64]—probably they would say out of kindness to myself as one of their oldest contributors, since they would have had to scarify me, especially as regards the huge Vaccination chapter, which is nevertheless about the most demonstrative bit of work I have done. I begged Myers—as a personal favour—to read it. He told me he firmly believed in vaccination, but would do so, and afterwards wrote me that he could see no answer to it, and if there was none he was converted. There certainly has been not a tittle of answer except abuse.
I am glad you brought Lockyer up sharp in his attempt to refuse you the right to reply. I am glad you now have some personal observations to adduce. I hope persons or corporations who are going to employ a dowser will now advise you so that you may be present....—Yours very faithfully,
ALFRED R. WALLACE.