330 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 19 2 8 



of force the waves pass through his body and thus cause the movement 

 of the rod. Various instruments such as the Mansfield water finder 

 also rely on the existence of some physical force. As lines of force 

 are out of my province I have referred Mager's last book to Professor 

 Desch who kindly reports as follows : 



I have read " Les Baguettes " with care and with increasing bewilderment. 

 The author appears to be honest, and gives a detailed account of a very large 

 number of experiments, and yet the results are evidently worthless, and utterly 

 inconsistent. Sometimes he can make great alterations in the conditions, and 

 sometimes the slightest change alters the whole effect. Sometimes he professes 

 quantitative accuracy, and then it becomes clear that any foreign matter in the 

 neighboi'hood would destroy the effect. He gives details of the analysis of 

 complex substances without explaining why the effect of one constituent does 

 not mask that of another. I do not think that this book can be accepted as 

 furnishing any support for the view that the diviners have powers of detecting 

 water or minerals. The author's lines of force which build themselves up into 

 a kind of wall are utterly inconsistent with the known properties of lines of 

 electric or magnetic force. 



According to Mager (1920, p. 12), the movement of the rod can 

 only be interpreted after prolonged training, and its successful use 

 requires 10 years of constant laborious systematic experience. The 

 ordinary diviner he distrusts as somewhat of a quack, because of the 

 lack of training, and he regards the English diviners as less efficient 

 that the French (Mager, 1913, p. 121). 



A phj^sical cause for the movement of the rod is not to be dismissed 

 as impossible, but so widespread and powerful a force should be 

 easily demonstrated. The discovery of radioactivity was at once fol- 

 lowed by convincing experiments which proved its existence. If the 

 lines of force of M. Mager exist they should be demonstrable by con- 

 sistent experimental results; but the statements regarding them are 

 vague, indefinite, and unconvincing. 



Mager and his work are summarily dismissed by the United States 

 Geological Survey, for A. J. Ellis (Water Supply Paper 416, 1917, 

 p. 23) states: " In all its weird history no more extravagant and ab- 

 surd claims were ever made for the di-vining rod than those which are 

 maintained at the present time by Henri Mager." 



The alternative explanation is that the movement of the rod is due, 

 though perhaps unconsciously, to the diviner. Barrett and Bester- 

 man dismiss the evidence for an external physical force by arguments 

 which seem unanswerable. The view that the action on the rod is 

 ps3chic and not physical is supported by the fact that any sort of rod 

 will serve. In the early days it had to be a twig cut about sunset or 

 sunrise by a man standing in a particular position, and with the sun- 

 light shining through the fork of the twig, and it would respond only 

 on certain days. But now any twig serves, and on the treeless plains 

 of Australia a piece of iron wire taken from the nearest fence will act 

 as well ; or it may be of aluminium, or a piece of clock spring, while 



