Dec. 9. 1854.] 



NOTES AND QUEKIES. 



467 



ditions of former science, or superstition of 

 manners, of faith, and of philology. With such 

 men as Kemble, and Madden, and Thorpe, among 

 us, there can be no difficulty, I blush for the 

 disgraceful apathy we have hitherto shown. Let 

 us now at once undertake this noble and patriotic 

 work. Geokge Stephens, 



Professor of Old-English, and of the En- 

 glish language and literature, in the 

 University of Copenhagen. 

 Copenhagen. 



THE DIVINING KOD. 



(^Continued from p. 451.) 



It needs no reference to Exodus xvii. to show 

 why the divining rod has so commonly been 

 spoken of as " Moses his rodde," or the Mosaical 

 Wand : the Staff of Jacob was a mathematical 

 instrument used in surveying. Thus Butler : 



« Tell me but what's the natural cause. 

 Why on a sign no painter draws 

 The full moon ever, but the half ? 

 Resolve that with your Jacob's staff." 



Hudibras, part ii. canto 3. 



It has generally been held that a hazel wand is 

 most efficacious, or, according to some, a twig of 

 the shrew-ash (an ordinary ash-tree, in an aperture 

 in which a live shrew-mouse has been inserted 

 and wedged up). Camerarius says : 



" No man can tell why forked stickes of hazel (rather 

 than stickes of other trees, growing upon the very same 

 places) are fit to show the places where the veines of gold 

 and silver are ; the sticke bending itselfe in the places at 

 the bottom, where the same veines are." — The Living 

 Librarie, §-c., fol. 1621, p. 283. 



And we are farther told that — 



" The experiment of a hazel's tendency to a vein of lead 

 ore is limited to St. John Baptist's Eve, and that with a 

 hazel of that same year's growth." — Athenian Oracle, 

 Supplement, p. 234. 



Mr. Phippen, however, in the pamphlet before 

 alluded to, states that wooden, or metallic, forks 

 are indifferently used ; and Agricola affirms that, 



" Non enim valet virgulaa figura, sed incantamenta car- 

 minum." — De re metallicd, t. ii. pp. 26, 27, 28. 



If, however, all these fail, mystical writers sup- 

 ply us with other means : thus, Albertus Parvus 

 gives the following receipt for the manufacture of 

 a " Chandelle mysterieuse pour la decouverte des 

 tresors • " 



"II faut avoir une grosse chandelle composee de suif 

 humain, et qu'elle soit enclavfe dans un morceau de 

 bois de cordrier fait en la manifere qui est representee 

 dans la figure suivante ; et si la chandelle ^tant allum^ 

 dans le souterain y fait beaucoup de bruit en petillant 

 avec ^clat, c'est une marque qu'il y a un thresor en ce 

 lieu, et plus on approchera du thresor, plus la chandelle 

 p^tillera, et enfin elle s'eteindra quand on sera tout-h-fait 



proche," &c. — Secrets Merveilleux, &c., du Petit Albert, 

 12mo., Lyons, 1768, p. 124. 



So much for the opus operatum ; sceptical writers, 

 however, have not been wanting who have endea- 

 voured to explain away the phenomenon as the 

 opus operantis. Among these the learned Kircherus 

 held the same opinion as that now advocated by a 

 SoMERSETSHiEE Incumbent and Mr. J. S. Wae- 

 DEir ; having probably been led to adopt it from 

 the apparent insufficiency of his own magnetic 

 sympathies to achieve success in his experiments. 



"Certfe ego saepius hujus rei suprS, metallica corpora 

 auri et argenti, experimentum sumens, semper spe me4 

 frustratus sum. . . . Atque luculenter adverti mani- 

 festam esse non dasmonis, sed virgam tractantis illu- 

 Bionem." — Mund. iiibterr., torn. ii. 1. 10. sect. ii. p. 180. 



Dr. A. T. Thomson, the editor and translator 

 of Salvertes Philosophy of the Occult Sciences, 

 2 vols. 8vo., 1846, informs us, in a note to that 

 valuable work, of a fact of which I was previously 

 ignorant : " The divining rod," says he, " was also 

 used as a curative agent." Is this correct, or has 

 the learned Doctor fallen into an error by con- 

 founding the divining rod with the cleft ash-tree, 

 through which it was the custom to transmit dis- 

 tempered children ? 



The divining rod is still in repute in various 

 parts of the Continent. In France, I am informed, 

 by a gentleman from Montbelliard in the province 

 of Franche-Comte, that it is used with success in 

 that locality by the Abbe Faramel. The United 

 States seem to have furnished us with another 

 Dousterswivel in the person of the notorious Joe 

 Smith, the founder of the Mormons. We are told 

 in a recent able summary of the history of that 

 sect, that — 



" For some years he led a vagabond life, about which 

 little is known, except that he was called ' Joe Smith the 

 Money-Digger,' and that he swindled several simpletons 

 by his pretended skill in the use of the divining rod." — 

 Edinburgh Review, No. 202. p. 323. 



In a modern Latin poem, the Prmdium Rusti- 

 cum, by Father Vaniere, a Jesuit, we have an 

 amusing account of the stratagem by which he 

 exposed a charlatanic money- seeker : 



" Me prsesente suam nnper jactantior artem _ 

 In coelum cum ferret aquae scrutator et auri ; 

 Ac rudibus rem pene viris suaderet, avara 

 Spe lucri faciente fidem ; fruticante sub herba 

 Quem reperit nummum, sub eodem gramine rursus 

 Miranti similis coram depono ; manuqiie 

 Inflectente volens, non per se vergere ramum, 

 Errantes oculos alib dum conjicit, aurum 

 Clam tollo : Coryliun rursus movet ille, manusque 

 Continet immotas ; et virgam cuncta trahentis 

 Demonstrat flecti deorsum vi solius auri. 

 Atqui aurum nullum est, aio : risere repertos 

 Fraude dolos ; quos ille fuga tacitoque pudore 

 Confessus, tamen auriferam non abdicat artem." 

 Prcedium Rusticum, 1730, Toulouse, 12mo., lib. i. 



A reference may amuse to the adventures of 



