COOK WORTHY AND THE DIVINING ROD. 325 



In 1745 his attention seems first to have been seriously 

 directed to experimenting in the manufacture of porcelain 

 at all events, in this year the first allusion to the matter 

 which is made in his letters and papers occurs, and this only 

 casually. 



At this time the business was still carried on under the style 

 of "Bevans and Cookworthy." The death of his wife, in 

 1745, entirely took away his attention from business, and his 

 researches into china clays were thrown aside. He retired 

 into seclusion at Looe, in Cornwall, where he remained for 

 several months, and, on his return to business, took his 

 brother Philip, who, it appears, had lately returned from 

 abroad,, into partnership, and carried it on, with him, under 

 the style of " William Cookworthy & Co." This arrange- 

 ment enabled Cookworthy to devote his time to the scientific 

 part of the business, and to the prosecution of his researches, 

 while his brother took the commercial management of the 

 concern. Left thus more to the bent of his scientific inclina- 

 tions, he pursued his inquiries relative to the manufacture 

 of porcelain, and lost no opportunity of searching into and 

 experimenting upon the properties of the different natural 

 productions of Cornwall ; and it is related of him that, in 

 his journeys into that county, he has passed many nights 

 sitting up with the managers of mines, obtaining informa- 

 tion on matters connected with mines and their products. 

 In the course of these visits he first became acquainted with 

 the supposed wonderful properties of the " Divining Rod," 

 or "Dowsing Rod," as it was called by the Cornish miners, 

 in the discovery of ore of various kinds. In the magic 

 properties of this rod he was an ardent believer, and he wrote 

 an elaborate dissertation upon its uses, which has been 

 published. 



His journeys into Cornwall, however, were productive of 

 much more important results than the fabulous properties 

 of the divining rod, for it was in these journeys that he 

 succeeded in discovering, after much anxious inquiry and 

 research, the materials for the manufacture of genuine 



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