or Divining Rod. 3^5 



thus with refpe& to the other metals and fubftances ; and 

 upon thefe properties of the rod depends its power of diftin- 

 oui(}ii)i(r one metal or fubflancc from another. Another 

 modi! however, grounded upon the fame principles, is pointed 

 out as being mueh more readv and certain, viz. by preparing 

 rods tiiat will onlv aufwer to tome one of the aforementioned 

 fubfiances. The mode of preparing them is by boring a 

 finall hole in the top of the rod, and by putting into it a 

 very finall quantity of each iubftance except that after which 

 fearch is to be made : the hole is then to be Hopped up with 

 a piece of the fame wood of which the rod is made. Thele 

 are. the directions which Cookworthy has given for the ufe 

 of the divining rod. 



It is now but little if at all praclifed in this country : the 

 few among the curious, or among practical miners, wl)o con- 

 tinue to aflert that it pofleffes an influence in the difcovery 

 of ores, feem fa far to have yielded to its opponents as to 

 have given up the ufe of it. Two with whom I became ac- 

 quainted in Cornwall (till affert their belief in it, and that it 

 has been the means of difcovering mines there; and a third 

 afTured me that he had himfelf, by the accidental u^e of the 

 rod, in a place where he did not expeel that it would have 

 been acled upon, viz. in his own (hop, difcovered a lode 

 which is now working under the town of Redruth : but it 

 mud be acknowledged that there are many more among the 

 mofi intelligent miners who ridicule the rod, than believe in 

 the influence of minerals upon it. Taking it for granted, 

 however, that metals do a£t upon the rod to the fullefi; extent 

 of Cookworthy's belief, it ftill remains a quettion, notwith- 

 standing the accommodating opinion of Pryce, whether it 

 would prove a benciit to the miner, as it is allowed that it dips 

 equally to the poor as to the rich lode, to a iilver penny as to 

 the mines of Potofi ; for it is too often experienced in Corn- 

 wall that lodes are not wanting, but ore. The advantage to be 

 derived from it, therefore, with regard to metallic veins feems 

 by no means a counterbalance to the niceties and uncertain- 

 ties attending its u(c; for the projector, implicitly depending 

 upon the information of the rod, might, at a ruinous expenle, 

 raniack the bowels of the earth, in confequence of its dip- 

 ping to a rich goflan, or a dead lode. 



Believing with Boyle, that they who have feen the experi- 

 ment can much more reafonably believe than thev who have 

 not, and being defirous of annexing to this account of the 

 divining rod any little teltimoniaT of my own experience, 

 which a fedulous attention to the preceding directions might 

 afford, I cut, during the laft winter, a number of hazle rods, 



X3 and 



