208 The Divining Rod. 
He held the rod with peculiar spirit, and an air of deters 
mination. Hoping to catch his lively manner, I took a rod, 
as I stood on the bank of the rivulet, and tried my own hands 
again. I moved neither hand rior foot, but the rod was in 
action; neither could I restrain it. He who has held the 
Leyden jar in one hand, while, for the first time in life, he 
ived its electric charge with the other, will recognize the 
sensation which communicated itself to the heart, when I felt 
the limbs of that rod crawling round, and saw the point turn- 
ing down, in spite of every effort my clenched hands could 
make to restrain it. ‘To my great satisfaction, without mov- 
ing from the spot, I found the bark start and wring off from 
the limbs of the rod in the contest; just as the divmer often 
shews, to convince himself and his employer of the strong at- 
traction of the discovered fountain. It was manifest that the 
force moving the divining rod is unconsciously applied by 
the hands of the diviner, and that the great art in holding the 
rod consists in holding it spiritedly. A smooth bark anda 
moist peared to have a substantial connection with 
divining ; and from that day to this the rod has never failed 
of moving in my hands, nor in the hands of those I instruct. 
Take the rod in the diviner’s manner, and it is evident that 
the bent limbs of the rod are equivalent to two bows tied to- 
gether at one extremity; and, when bent outwards, they ex- 
erta force in opposite directions upon the point at which they 
are united. Held thus the forces are equal and opposite, and 
no motion is produced. Keep the arms steady, but turn 
hands on the wrists inward an almost imperceptible degree, 
and the point of the rod will be constrained to move. If the 
limbs of the rods be clenched very tightly that they cannot 
turn, the bark will burst and wring off, and the rod will shiv- 
er and break under the action of the opposing forces. The 
greater the effort made in clenching the rod, the shorter is the 
bend of the limbs, and the greater the amount of the opposite 
forces meeting in the point: and the more unconsciously, al- 
so, do the hands incline to turn to their natural position on 
: ‘ ans 
It would be absurd to suppose, as he does, that the fountain 
mineral increases its attraction, in proportion to the resist- 
ance he opposes to the motion of the rod induced by that at- 
fraction: and he never once suspects, that the very effort to 
