MINING. 277 



§ 206. TJie Divining Bod. — In prospecting for auriferous 

 quartz, use is sometimes made of the divining rod, a practice 

 not without credit with some good miners. The rod is a fork 

 of a green hazel-bush, shaped like a V, with the arms about a 

 foot long. The prospector holds the end of an arm in each 

 hand, w^ith the point of the V directed forward horizontally, 

 and as he walks along, the point turns down whenever he 

 comes over a metalliferous vein, metallic body or water. It is 

 supposed that very few persons can use the divining rod effec- 

 tually ; for most men it refuses to turn. It is used in nearly 

 every civilized country, especially by miners, and is generally 

 considered superstitious, because it is employed by ignorant 

 people, and because there has been no generally accepted 

 scientilic exphmation of the manner in which a stick could be 

 inliuenced by a metal hidden under ground. A scientific ex- 

 planation of the principle of the divining rod has been offered 

 to the world, by Baron Reichenbach (see page sixty of his 

 Odic-Magupiic Letters^ translated by John S. Ilittell). 



§ 207. Quarrying Quartz. — The quarrying of quartz rock 

 differs little from the quarrying of other metalliferous vein- 

 stones. The lode descends steeply, and the excavation n:nst 

 follow its course. Sometimes the quartz is so soft that it ma^ 

 easily be loosened yv'wh. the pick. The harder rock is blasted. 

 Soft quartz is that which is penetrated by numerous cavities, 

 though the lumps between the cavities may be very hard. 

 Some quartz on exposure to the air crumbles into sand, tliough 

 hard when first taken from the vein. In narrow lodes, some 

 of the wall-rock must be cut away to get room for the work- 

 men. In wide lodes, that part oi' the vein-stone which docs 

 not p:iy is left. Sometimes the gold from the lode peneti-ates 

 a little way into the foot-wall, and in that case the quarrying 

 must extend beyond the vein-stone. The quartz loosened in 

 the vein, must either be hoisted perpendicularly in a bucket 

 with a windlass, or be hauled out thi-ougli a tunnel. The com- 

 mon method is to hoist the rock with a windlass. Most o^'ihe 

 veins are in such places that shafts are more easily dug than 



