392 DIVERSIONS OF A NATURALIST 



Guildford by a committee of water engineers and geo- 

 logists, and also by a similar committee in Paris, Only 

 a dozen or two of the water-finding dousers came for- 

 ward and submitted to be thus tested, and they entirely 

 failed to show any special capacity for discovering water. 

 They failed signally. But then the believers may, of 

 course, retort that the really gifted superior dousers had 

 refused to have anything to do with the inquiry, and 

 that " their withers are unwrung." The same kind of 

 test was some years ago made with the so-called 

 "spiritualist mediums." A banknote for ^looo was 

 placed in a very carefully sealed envelope, and deposited 

 in a safe in a bank. Its owner advertised his offer to 

 present the note to any spiritualists who would correctly 

 state the number of the note. The offer remained open 

 for some years, but the spiritualists were unable to gain 

 information about this very simple matter by their 

 methods of consulting supposed " spirits," and the note 

 was never claimed. Of course, some of those who 

 believe in spiritualism, maintain that the genuine 

 " mediums," for some reason not altogether clear, refused 

 to make the attempt to discover the number. Others put 

 forward the view that the " spirits " took offence at the pro- 

 posed test, and refused to reveal the number. Others, 

 again, took the line that this was just one of the few 

 things about which "spirits" are unable to communicate 

 with mortals, or are forbidden by superior order to reveal. 



It is accordingly fairly obvious that it is not of 

 much use to take the trouble to expose the falsity of 

 the pretensions of any isolated specimen of a douser 

 or of a spirit medium. However that may be, some 

 years ago, when I was staying in an ancient castle in 

 the North of England, my hostess procured the attend- 

 ance of a youth who had a great reputation as a douser, 



