415 



Turkey carpet. I may say that the door of the room was 

 closed, and that no one could observe our proceedings through 

 the keyhole, as it did not command the end of the room we 

 were in. We then called MuUins in, and asked him to use his 

 rod along the left hand side of the room. He took a forked 

 twig from his pocket and proceeded up the room with it, holding 

 it in front of him as I have described. It .showed no agitation 

 at first, but soon did so, and we marked the spot with a piece of 

 paper. Twice afterwards this occurred, and MuUins said he had 

 no doubt but that he had come across some water conveyed 

 under the flooring, probably the supply to a cistern. We then 

 turned up the carpet and found the sovereigns on the spots 

 indicated by the rod. 



It was this circumstance which first aroused my interest in 

 the subject, and I thought it sufficiently remarkable to be 

 recorded here, but, at the same time, my observations have not 

 led me to believe that diviners are so invariably aflPected by the 

 presence of metals as of water. I have read of instances where 

 diviners, other than MuUins, have failed to discover metal under 

 similar conditions to those just narrated. MuUins, however, 

 told me that, although he could detect the presence of gold, he 

 did not feel equally sure about other metals, and, in fact, that 

 he did not bind himself to find anything but water. 



As I expressed a desire to follow this matter up, Mr. Brown 

 was good enough to furnish me with the following particulars as 

 to his own experiences : — He said, " I employed MuUins to try 

 for water near Box, the only well near, which was 180 feet 

 deep, being often out of water from September to December, 

 after a dry summer. MuUins marked the track of four different 

 springs, one of which, he said, was rather stronger than the 

 others. I asked him how deep the best spring was under the 

 surface, and he said 'about 110 feet.' I then directed MuUins 

 to search for an old weU, which, when I was a lad, my father 

 had discovered in an open quarry at the time the Box Tunnel 



