NOTES AND COMMENTS. 
SCIENCE V. MAGIC. 
We learn from the Yorkshire Observer that an interesting and 
amusing demonstration of the fact that modern science offers 
some advantages over mediaeval magic has just been afforded 
the inhabitants of the beautiful Vale of Pickering. In the 
western part of the dale a good deal of trouble has been occa- 
sioned in dry seasons by failure of the water supplies, and the 
medical officers of health have made strong representations 
to their respective authorities urging the provision of other 
and better sources of supply. A little while ago Amotherby 
was in difficulty of the kind, and the District Council was 
persuaded to move in the matter. In such localities, remote 
and delightfully unsophisticated, ancient superstitions find 
sanctuary still, and though it occasioned amusement else- 
where when it was reported in the newspapers, it doubtless 
seemed to the inhabitants as natural a thing to call in the 
aid of the water-diviner to find underground waters as it is 
to hang a stone with a hole in it in the cattle byre, or to nail 
a horseshoe over the stable-door, to keep away ill-luck. 
WATER DIVINING. 
The water-diviner, with all due rites and ritual, decided 
upon a suitable spot for a bore-hole, and indicated his expecta- 
tion that water would be found within a certain distance of 
the surface. The borehole was made at a cost of some hundreds 
of pounds—the exact cost the ratepayers of the locality will 
in time come to appreciate—and water not being found at 
the indicated level the work was continued to about three 
times the depth without success, and, faith giving out under 
the financial drain, the work was eventually abandoned. 
AN ARTESIAN WELL. 
A few miles farther westward, at Oswaldkirk, where similar 
complaint was made of water famine in the hot summer of 
the year before last, the local landowner, Colonel Benson, of 
Oswaldkirk Hall, preferred expert geological advice to resort 
to the supernatural, and a borehole was put down on his 
estate in a spot chosen on mere scientific principles. This 
boring struck water about a week ago, and is yielding an 
artesian well supply of a hundred thousand gallons per aay 
delivered at a natural pressure sufficient to afford the village 
the safeguard of fire-hydrants if desired. Beyond meeting all 
domestic needs, the waste water will, if run through a turbine, 
be more than adequate to light the village with electricity. 
The discovery has occasioned a good deal of interest both 
among the country-folk and in geological circles, and on a 
1913 ‘April Ne L 
