70 USE OF THE DIYINING EOD. 



rod, or any incantation as he expresses it, or that a little 

 " prospecting" will put you at once on the spot. 



Agricola has shown fairly we think the absurdity of the 

 supposed attraction of metal veins. AYe owe it no doubt to his 

 scientific training as a physician that he gives us so minute an 

 account of the diviners, and such a common-sense view of their 

 pretentions. 



Soon after his time it was put to far more chimerical uses than 

 the finding of metals. To equal the senseless and impractical 

 claims which some of its uses put forth we must turn to the 

 extravagancies of modern spiritualists. Some pretended to 

 discover whether one man had removed his neighbour's landmark ; 

 to show the place of concealment of stolen goods ; to pick the 

 thief out of a crowd ; or to find the place where a murder had 

 been committed. 



Those who are interested in the subject will find some account 

 of these diviners in an essay by S. Baring Gould, in "Curious 

 Myths of the Middle [Ages," where the information is of course 

 second-hand, but it is a book easily accessible. 



In Bayle's Dictionary, in a note to the article Aharis further 

 information will be found. But the best book that we know on 

 the subject is a little French work by M. Chevreul "De la 

 Baguette Divinatoire, &c." Paris, 1854. He gives an account of 

 most of these pretenders, and a short analysis of the books and 

 pamphlets written on the subject during the middle ages. He 

 shows how contradictory were the practices and claims of these 

 diviners, (§ 236) but as we can only notice their geological 

 pretentions, we must refer to M. Chevreul' s book for further 

 details. 



