835 



DIVINING ROD. 



DIVINING ROD. 



586 



character has been exhibited at the Polytechnic Institution, London. 

 In the ' Gentleman's Magazine ' for September, 17-49 (vol. xix., p. 412), 

 will be found a notice of a curious diving apparatus, consisting of a 

 case inclosing the person, with the arms protruding in flexible sleeves, 

 which is stated to have been contrived and used for many years by a 

 person named John Lethbridge, who writes from Newton Abbot, near 

 Exon, Devon, and states that he tried experiments as early as 1715. 

 This was supplied with air by flexible pipes. A similar machine was 

 contrived by Mr. Howe in 1753, which was to be lowered by tackle like 

 a diving-bell. 



One of the diving-machines contrived by Klingert was so arranged 

 that it would rise or fall by the motion of a piston in a cy Under, in the 

 lower part of the apparatus, by which the diver could vary the density 

 of the ah-, and consequently the specific gravity of the machine, at 

 pleasure. A very simple apparatus for enabling a person diving with- 

 out a bell, or any of the machines above noticed, to effect the same object, 

 has been recently invented by Mr. W. H. Thornthwaite of Hoxton. 

 It is described in the fifty-second volume (p. 243) of the ' Transactions ' 

 of the Society of Arts, by whom Mr. Thornthwaite was rewarded for 

 it in 1839. It consists of a hollow bslt of India-rubber cloth, to 

 which is attached a small but strong copper vessel. Into this vessel 

 air is to be forced by a condensing syringe, until it has a pressure of 

 thirty or forty atmospheres. The belt is then put on, in a collapsed 

 state, so that it affords no buoyancy, and does not impede the descent 

 of the diver ; but when he desires to rise, he opens a valve, by which 

 the condensed air escapes from the copper vessel into the belt. As it 

 expands the belt, it affords sufficient buoyancy to raise the diver imme- 

 diately to the surface. 



An account of schemes for submarine descent would hardly be com- 

 plete without some allusion to projects for submarine navigation, of 

 which many have been suggested. An early instance is that of 

 Cornelius Drebell, or Drebelle, who is said to have made a vessel to be 

 rowed under water, which was tried in the Thames by order of 

 James I., and carried twelve rowers, besides passengers. This vessel 

 is alluded to by Robert Boyle, in his ' New Experiments Physico- 

 Mechanicall, touching the Spring of the Air, and its effects,' &c., pub- 

 lished at Oxford in 1660. Pages 363-5 of this curious work contain 

 an account of Drebell's experiment, and state that he accounted his 

 chief secret to be " the composition of a liquid that would speedily 

 restore to the troubled air such a proportion of vital parts as would 

 make it again, for a good while, fit for respiration." The composition 

 of this liquid for enabling the same air to be used again and again, was 

 never made public. Bishop Wilkins, who also favoured some other 

 whimsical projects, devoted a whole chapter of his ' Mathematicall 

 Magick,' which was published in 1648, to a dissertation ' Concerning 

 the possibility of framing an Ark for Submarine Navigation.' In this 

 work (book ii., chap. 5) he recites the difficulties of the scheme, but 

 evidently considers them not insurmountable ; and afterwards he 

 enlarges upon its advantages, in privacy, security from pirates, storms, 

 ice, &., in naval warfare, philosophical experiments, discoveries, &c., 

 and at length states that " All kind of arts and manufactures may be 

 exercised in this vessel. The observations made by it may bee both 

 written and (if need were) printed here likewise. Severall Colonies 

 may thus inhabit, having their children born and bred up without the 

 knowledge of land, who could not chuse but be amazed with strange 

 conceits upon the discovery of this upper world." The bishop adds, 

 " I am not able to judge what other advantages there may be suggested, 

 or whether experiment would fully answer to these notionall conjec- 

 tures." In 1774 a projector named Day lost bin life in an experimental 

 descent in Plymouth Sound, with a vessel of about 50 tons burden, 

 which he thought he could have caused to rise after a lapse of several 

 hours ; and this experiment, of which an account is given in the 

 seventeenth volume of the ' Annual Register ' (p. 245), led to the publi- 

 cation, in the following year, of a ' Philosophical Dissertation on the 

 Diving Vessel projected by Mr. Day, and sunk in Plymouth Sound,' by 

 N. i). Falck, M.D., which contains a representation and minute descrip- 

 tion of the vessel, an account of the ineffectual attempts to raise her, 

 and much other curious matter. One of the most successful machines 

 contrived for submarine navigation was that of Mr. Busnnell of Con- 

 necticut, which was projected in 1771, and completed in 1775. 

 Bushnell's chief object appears to have been the introduction of sub- 

 marine warfare. His vessel, which was propelled by screws, somewhat 

 resembling those now in use for steam-vessels, is described in the 

 ' Transactions of the American Philosophical Society,' vol. iv., p. 303, 

 whence the account was copied into ' Nicholson's Journal,' vol. iv., 

 p. 229. The subsequent projects of Fulton for the same purpose 

 have been referred to elsewhere. [FULTON, ROBERT, in Biuu. Div.J 

 In the article 'Diving-Bell,' in the ' Encyclopedia Metropolitana,' 

 written by Mr. Babbage, a detailed plan is laid down for the con- 

 struction of a vessel for submarine navigation. Among the suggestions 

 there made are those of using oxygen, condensed in store-vessels, to 

 replenish the air, and of absorbing the carbonic acid produced by 

 respiration, either by cream of lime, or by a strong solution of 

 ammonia. 



UIVIMNQ ROD, a forked branch, usually of hazel, by which it 

 has been pretended that minerals and water may be discovered in the 

 earth. The rod, if slowly carried along in suspension, dips and- points 

 downward, it is affirmed, when brought over the spot where the con- 



cealed mine or spring is situated. Other mysterious powers such as 

 those of discovering the lost boundaries of lands, identifying murderers, 

 discovering hidden treasure, and even of detecting the birth-place and 

 parentage of foundlings have also been attributed to the divining rod. 

 The rod is sometimes called the Virgula Divina, or the Baculus 

 Divinatorius, or the rod of Aaron, or the Caducous (after the wand of 

 Mercury). Many persons with some pretensions to science have been 

 believers in the powers ascribed to the divining rod. George Agricola, 

 the able and learned German metallurgist of the 16th century, and in 

 later times John Sperlingius and Theodore Kirchmaierus, who have 

 both written Disputatiunmlce on the rod, all say the devil is in it. In 

 1690 appeared an account of a mason in Dauphine", " who, guided by a 

 hazel rod, followed a murderer for forty-five hours over land, and thirty 

 hours on the water." Richelet, in his Dictionary (art. ' Baguette 

 Divinatoire '), confesses that after what he has seen he cannot entertain 

 any doubt as to its possessing the wonderful qualities ascribed to it. 

 The learned Morhoft', who was eminent for his scientific as well as 

 literary knowledge, admits that it is not clear to him whether the 

 effects be natural or the result of demoniac agency. M. Thouvenot 

 published at Paris, in 1781, a 'Memoir on the relation of the phe- 

 nomena of the Divining Rod to those of Electricity and Magnetism ; ' 

 and Pryce, in his ' Mineralogia Comubiensis ' (fol. 1778), has collected 

 accounts of numerous successful experiments which he says were per- 

 formed by the instrument. Some remarks on the rod and on the 

 attempts that have been made to explain its fancied operation, may be. 

 found in the Marquis le Gendre's ' Traitd de 1'Opinion ; ' and there is 

 a discussion of the subject, which is well worth reading, both for the 

 reflections aud some curious facts which it contains, in Bayle's ' Dic- 

 tionary,' in the notes to the article ' Abaris.' 



The present century has not been without its contributions, favour- 

 able and unfavourable, to the pretensions of diviners. Dr. Hutton, in 

 1803, in his edition of ' Ozauam's Recreations,' ridiculed the whole 

 subject of divination. Lady Noel, mother of Lord Byron, hearing of 

 this work, wrote to inform Hutton that she herself possessed this 

 disputed power ; that she had been induced to try by observing the 

 success of a peasant in Provence ; that, in company with Mr. Dawson 

 Turner, at Warlingham, she had made a trial ; that the hazel twig did 

 turn when she came over a hidden stream of water ; and that, so far 

 from using any muscular force to make the rod turn, " her thumbs 

 and fingers became quite reddened and sore from the efforts she made to 

 keep it from turning." Thus challenged, Hutton invited her to Wool- 

 wich, where, according to the accounts of others (but not, we believe, 

 of the learned mathematician himself) a hidden spring of water was 

 pointed out by the divining rod. Dr. Herbert Mayo, in a series of 

 articles published in ' Blackwood's Magazine,' hi 1847, on the Truths 

 contained in Popular Superstitious, and afterwards collected into a 

 volume, placed some credence in the divining rod. He states it as a 

 popular belief in Cornwall, that about one person in forty possesses 

 the faculty of discovering the locality of veins of copper and tin by 

 means of the rod. They proceed thus : A hazel twig is cut just below 

 where it forks ; it is stripped of its leaves ; and then each branch is cut 

 to about a foot in length, leaving a stump three inches long. The 

 hazel fork thus prepared is to be held by the branches, one in each 

 hand, the stump or point projecting forwards ; the arms of the dowser 

 or diviner hang by his sides, but the elbows being bent at a right angle, 

 the forearms are advanced horizontally. The hands are held eight or 

 ten niches apart, the knuckles down, and the thumbs outwards ; the 

 ends of the branches appear between the roots of the thumbs and 

 fore-fingers. The experimenter walks over the ground in the full 

 expectation that, if he possess the mystic gift, as soon as he passes 

 over a vein of metal, or an underground spring, the fork will begin 

 to move spontaneously in his hand, rising or falling as the case may 

 be. When at Nassau, about the time of the publication of his papers, 

 Dr. Mayo made many experiments by the aid of a young man named 

 Edward Seebold, and two of his brothers, together with two other 

 persons ; these persons walked many times to and fro, on a piece of 

 ground known to contain water beneath, holding prepared twigs 

 of hazel in their hands ; the hazel twigs made many circular and 

 vibratory movements, apparently involuntarily on the part of the 

 experimenters ; but Mayo failed to draw any very definite conclusions 

 on the matter : and in a later edition of his work, in 1851, he stated 

 that Seebold seemed to have lost the power altogether. Mr. Phippen, 

 in a pamphlet published in 1853, contends for the practicability of 

 discovering water, metals, and coal by the divining rod. It appears 

 that, being on a visit to his brother, a surgeon at Wedmore, in Somer- 

 setshire, the two were induced to test the powers of two dowsers or 

 professional diviners, named Mapatone and Adams. Mapstoue there- 

 upon discovered a hidden spring of water, at a place where a farmer 

 named Edwards was very anxious to sink a well. Adams also had the 

 reputation of having dowsed successfully for more than a hundred 

 wells, discovering not only water but metal, the existence of which 

 underground had not been previously known to him. When these 

 statements were made public in two of the London newspapers, Mr. 

 Marshall, one of the partners in the great flax factory at Leeds, wrote 

 to ask Mr. Phippen whether the facts had been correctly reported, and 

 whether Adams would try his reputed skill in Yorkshire ? A meeting 

 was arranged ; and Mr. Phippen prints in his pamphlet Mr. Marshall's 

 account of what took place. The dowser certainly did succeed, in 



