Diversions of a Naturalist

by Sir E. Ray Lankester

Let us assume for a moment that the facts are as I have stated, and that the honest "douser" merely finds his forked twig dousing or ducking because his hands are tired by keeping in one position. Then it is evident that no harm would be done, but rather a useful decision leading to action would be determined, by the belief that concealed metal was the cause of the "ducking." Digging must be commenced somewhere, and the dousing-rod would only be tried on likely ground, so that, often, the thing sought for (whether metal or water) would be found after prolonged excavation at the spot indicated by the douser, or near it. If the digging were a failure, the believers in the dousing-rod would say that they had not been able to dig deep enough, or that some hostile agency had intervened and misled the "douser," or that he was in poor health, and so "worked" badly. The successes are remembered and the failures forgotten. So the belief in the dousing-twig as a real guide to subterranean metal and water has been maintained, and all the more securely because there have been, and doubtless are still, many honest, innocent country people who truly believe that they possess an exceptional and mysterious gift in being able to experience the curious ducking action of the twig when they walk with it in their hands in quest of this or that.

In the seventeenth century the dousing-twig was used as a guide in all sorts of quests, for instance, in searching for hidden treasure and in tracking criminals! In our own times it is chiefly known through its use by professional water-finders. There is no doubt that some of these gentry are dishonest. They are not the credulous rustics to whom the dousing-twig owes its long popularity. They are often clever and expert judges of the indications by form of the land, lie of geological strata, and distribution of vegetation, as to the subterranean water which is so abundant in this country. They make a pretence of using the douser's twig, in order to obtain employment from landowners in search of a likely spot for sinking a well, since it is the fact that many people prefer to be guided by a sort of magician who uses a supposed mysterious occult agency rather than to employ the honest and perhaps less acute geologist who avowedly proceeds in his search for water by making use of ascertained facts as to the structure and character of the subsoil and deeper strata of the district in which his services are called for.

The believers in the connexion of the movement of the douser's rod and the existence of concealed metal or water, have of late years started the theory that the twig itself is of no value in the "experiment." Certain dousers have declared that they can work just as well without it, and that it is not the rod or twig but they themselves who are sensitive to concealed water or metal. They state that they feel a peculiar "sinking" in the pit of the stomach, also a nervous tremor, and that their hands move spasmodically, causing the rod to move, and they attribute this to an influence on the human body of "vibrations" or possibly "electricity" from the concealed metal or water. This is ingenious enough; it shifts the seat of mysterious action from the simple twig to the much more complex human body, and accepts to a certain extent what I have above stated as to the nervous condition of the douser and the fatigue of the hands.

Others, who have lately discussed the subject, suggest that the douser is affected not by any known kind of physical vibrations, but by some mysterious emanation from the concealed metals or water similar to that which they (without any sufficient evidence) assume to pass from one human being to another over long distances, causing what has been called "second-sight," "thought-reading," and (in order to give an air of scientific importance to it) "telepathy." This may seem satisfactory to some people, but it is plainly a case of attempting to explain a little-known thing by reference to a still less known thing—what is called "ignotum per ignotius." Sir W. F. Barrett, of Dublin, has lately written on this subject, and very rightly says that the real question to be decided in the first instance is whether the modern "water-finders," who profess to be guided by occult influences, whatever the nature of those influences may be, are more successful in discovering water than those who seek for it by the use of the known natural indications of its presence; and, further,—and this seems to me to be the most important consideration,—whether, taking into account all the "experiments" made by the occultist water-finders, both the successful and the unsuccessful, the proportion of successes is greater than might be expected as a matter of chance and the use of common intelligence.

That is, in fact, the interesting point about the persistent belief in the "magical" powers of water-finders. It is one of several more or less traditional beliefs which depend on coincidence. The belief in birth-marks is of this nature. A lizard drops from the ceiling of her room on to a woman. A few weeks afterwards she bears a child which has a mark upon its breast more or less "resembling" a lizard. Some people believe that the mark on the child is caused by what is called "a maternal impression," the influence on the mother's mind of the scare caused by the lizard being expressed in the mark on the child's body. To form a conclusion as to the truth of this explanation we require to know what proportion of mothers in a given population have been startled by lizards, what proportion of children are born with marks on them more or less "resembling" a lizard (there is much significance in the "more or less"), and whether there are more children born with a lizard-like mark on the body from mothers who have been frightened shortly before the child's birth by a lizard, than from mothers who have not been thus frightened. The inquiry is not an easy one. The same question of coincidence applies to water-finding. Taking several thousand attempts to find water we must ask, "Is the attempt unsuccessful in a larger percentage of trials in the case of those who do not follow the indications of a dousing-rod than in the case of those who make use of it?" Sir W. F. Barrett admits the difficulty of getting at satisfactory statistics in the matter; but is inclined to think the dousers are the more successful, and so entertains a theory of mysterious agency to account for their success. My own impression is that in difficult cases of search for water dousers are as frequently unsuccessful as non-dousers.

It is true we cannot get proper returns of all cases of success and failure. But in this matter of "water-finding" we can make use of "experiment," a thing which is not so easy in regard to birth-marks—though it is related that the patriarch Jacob made an experiment of this character with his pealed stakes. Experiments have lately been made with dousers or water-diviners to test their powers. These experiments have been carried out both in Paris and in the South of England. They are unfavourable to the pretensions of the diviners.

It is very difficult to perform under perfectly fair conditions a number of experiments sufficiently large to enable us to arrive at a demonstration of the truth in this matter. Some thousand "dousers" should be put to the test under proper conditions and guarantees, and the percentage of failures and successes carefully recorded. This has not been done, although "dousers" have often been tested and found to be unable to discover subterranean water known to be present, or else have given erroneous indications. If you prove some one individual "douser" to be an impostor, or else self-deluded—the reply by those who believe in the existence of the occult power attributed to dousers is, naturally enough, that though this individual was an impostor, or incapable, yet that does not prove that all other individuals who claim to possess certain peculiar powers in the discovery of water are so. All that can be done is to challenge any douser to come forward and establish, in the presence of a competent tribunal of experts, that he can indicate in a given area the whereabouts of subterranean water already known to the committee but not possibly known beforehand to the douser.

This experiment was made a year or two ago near Guildford by a committee of water engineers and geologists, and also by a similar committee in Paris. Only a dozen or two of the water-finding dousers came forward and submitted to be thus tested, and they entirely failed to show any special capacity for discovering water. They failed signally. But then the believers may, of course, retort that the really gifted superior dousers had refused to have anything to do with the inquiry, and that "their withers are unwrung." The same kind of test was some years ago made with the so-called "spiritualist mediums." A banknote for £1000 was placed in a very carefully sealed envelope, and deposited in a safe in a bank. Its owner advertised his offer to present the note to any spiritualists who would correctly state the number of the note. The offer remained open for some years, but the spiritualists were unable to gain information about this very simple matter by their methods of consulting supposed "spirits," and the note was never claimed. Of course, some of those who believe in spiritualism, maintain that the genuine "mediums," for some reason not altogether clear, refused to make the attempt to discover the number. Others put forward the view that the "spirits" took offence at the proposed test, and refused to reveal the number. Others, again, took the line that this was just one of the few things about which "spirits" are unable to communicate with mortals, or are forbidden by superior order to reveal.