THE DIVINING ROD 105 



Mullins arrived at Osterley in the forenoon. He 

 was at perfect liberty to go about and inspect the 

 field of operations, and I think I remember being 

 told he had done so. After luncheon he presented 

 himself to the visitors and set to work. Sir James 

 Crighton-Brown took command of the inspecting 

 staff. Mullins, having a supply of light, forked 

 hazel rods, rather thicker than an ordinary drawing 

 pencil, and about a foot or fifteen inches long, seized 

 one of them with a prong in each hand, and began 

 to move about with the point of the rod about a foot 

 above the surface of the ground. At two places on 

 the gravel sweep in front of the house the rod 

 turned up, Mullins stopped, and told us that a spring 

 would be found at those points. The same happened 

 at more than one place in the park, where the sur- 

 face was grassy. He showed us how the rod twisted 

 so violently that, when he held it tight, it broke in 

 his hand. Asked what his sensations were, he 

 replied that when the rod turned up he felt a ' kind 

 of a shivering ' passing upwards along his spine. He 

 stood on a plate of thick glass, and explained to us 

 that the rod then gave no sign, which, in his view, 

 showed that the influence was electricity. Sir James 

 then proposed that Mullins should go through his 



