340 



ANNUAL KEPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 19 2 8 



Scale oi Vsct 



In an extensive test in Southwest Africa, of 800 places indicated by 

 the rod 148 were bored ; 21 per cent yielded no water, but in the rest 

 some water was found, and in 90 per cent of them at the depth pre- 

 dicted. In a test at the Paris Waterworks the results were such as 

 would have come from mere chance. 



The divining rod has been frequently used in Essex. The success 

 of the well sunk in 1894 on the recommendation of William Stone 

 at Thremhall Priory near Bishops Stortford has been often quoted; 

 but we owe to G. S. Pritchett (Essex Naturalist, VIII, 1894, p. 50) 

 record of the fact that two wells were then sunk on the recommen- 

 dation of Stone, and that at one, though the indication of water was 



so powerful that his rod 

 split, a well dug 55 feet 

 deep yielded no water. 



The experts on water 

 supply connected with 

 national geological sur- 

 veys have often reported 

 on divining, and so far as 

 I know they are unani- 

 mously against it. H. B. 

 Woodward, who was a 

 member of the British 

 Geological Survey and 

 was especially connected 

 with water problems, in 

 his Geology of Water 

 Supply (1910, pp. 239- 

 242) , refers to divining as " uncertain," and often " remarkably unsuc- 

 cessful," and quotes authorities in support of that view. The U. S. 

 Geological Survey has issued a memoif on the subject (Water Suj^ply 

 Paper 416, 1917), and O. E. Meinzer in the introduction (p. 5) 

 asserts emphatically its " practical uselessness," and declares that 

 " it is difficult to see how for practical purposes the entire matter 

 could be more thoroughly discredited, and it should be obvious to 

 everyone that further tests by the U. S. Geological Survej^ of this 

 so-called ' witching ' for water, oil, or other minerals would be a 

 misuse of public funds." 



V. AN OIL DIVINING TEST 



The rod has been largely used for oil finding or " oil-smelling " 

 in America. A careful test of its powers in this respect was made 

 by Sir John Cadman at the research station of the Anglo-Persian 

 Oil Co. at Sudbury. Sir John Cadman tells me that the people 

 engaged in burying the oil were removed from the vicinity during 



Figure 13. — Kitchen of Brislington Hall 

 W, Well ; C 1-3 ; P 1-2 ; N 1-5 ; sites and lines indi- 

 cated by three diviners 



