(Vol. viii., pp. 293. 479.)
The inclosed extract from a letter which I have just received from a friend on the subject of the divining rod, will probably interest your readers as an answer to a Query which appeared some weeks ago in your excellent work. You may entirely rely on the accuracy of the facts stated.
J. A. H.
"However the pretended effect of the divining rod may be attributed to knavery and credulity by philosophers who will not take the trouble of witnessing and investigating the operation, any one who will pay a visit to the Mendip Hills in Somersetshire, and the country round their base, may have abundant proof of the efficacy of it. Its success has been very strikingly proved along the range of the Pennard Hills also, to the South of the Mendip. The faculty of discovering water by means of the divining rod is not possessed by every one; for indeed there are but few who possess it in any considerable degree, or in whose hands the motion of the rod, when passing over an underground stream, is very decided; and they who have it are quite unconscious of their capability until they are made aware of it by experiment.
"I saw the operation of the rod, or rather of a fork, formed of the shoots of the last year, held in the hands of the experimentor by the extremities, with the angle projecting before him. When he came over the spot beneath which the water flowed, the rod, which had before been perfectly still, writhed about with considerable force, so that the holder could not keep it in its former position; and he appealed to the bystanders to notice that he had made no motion to produce this effect, and used every effort to prevent it. The operation was several times repeated with the same result, and each time under the close inspection of shrewd and doubting, if not incredulous, observers. Forks of any kind of green wood served equally well, but those of dead wood had no effect. The experimentor had discovered water, in several instances, in the same parish (Pennard), but was perfectly unaware of his capability till he was requested by his landlord to try. The operator had the reputation of a perfectly honest man, whose word might be safely
trusted, and who was incapable of attempting to deceive any one—as indeed appeared by his open and ingenuous manner and conversation on this occasion. He was a farmer, and respected by all his neighbours. So general is the conviction of the efficacy of the divining rod in discovering both water and the ores of calamine or zinc all over the Mendip, that the people are quite astonished when any doubt is expressed about it. The late Dr. Hutton wrote against the pretension, as one of many instances of deception founded upon gross ignorance and credulity; when a lady of quality, who herself possessed the faculty, called upon him, and gave him experimental proof, in the neighbourhood of Woolwich, that water was discoverable by that means. This Dr. Hutton afterwards publicly acknowledged.
"The above I suppose will suffice for your present purpose; I could, however, say a great deal more, for I wrote a very long account many years ago to our friend ——, of what I have now only briefly stated. That letter was treated by certain scientific friends of his with contempt; but when I afterwards saw poor Dr. Turner, he said he would go down to Somerset to see it himself; but alas! he did not live to carry his intention into effect."
CHANGE OF MEANING IN PROVERBIAL EXPRESSIONS, ETC.
(Vol. viii., pp. 464, 465.)