COINCIDENCES; LUCK; CHANCE 



No. 7 among the odds. In fact the preference for No. 7 

 is so marked that the alliterative conbination No. 777 occurs 

 more often than all the combinations 770 to 779 added to- 

 gether, and it is seen that such similar alliterations occur 

 more often by sixty-seven per cent, than any other form of 

 combination ; so that noting the alliteration of despised No. 

 4, the number least desired of all the even numerals, it is 

 seen to occur twice as often as No. 443 or No. 445. 



May I here digress again ? so far as to say, that this 

 spontaneous reluctance to use No. 4 deserves a special in- 

 vestigation, in view of the way that number and its factors 

 is favored as called upon for heavy duty by those who an- 

 tagonize the introduction of decimal notation and metric 

 weights and measures. 



Before leaving this to me, interesting questinn of pro- 

 bable correctness in guessing, will you bear with me while 

 I quote from some recent experiments by Prof. T. Werth- 

 eimer, Principal of the Merchant Venturer's Technical 

 College, Bristol. His wish was to find the quantative or 

 measurable truth in the work of professional, and even 

 titled amateur " dowsero " (water diviners) for dowsing is 

 yet a common and advertised business in England. 



The whole series could not be here reproduced under- 

 standingly without wall diagrams, and apart from that 

 difficulty the locating of under-ground water is not easy to 

 test ; because, if the well you have put down prove dry, 

 the dowser can always say " you did not go deep enough." 

 But the dowser's alleged ability to recognize above ground 

 the fact of water flowing or not flowing through a pipe, is 

 more easily tested ; and with the help of Bristols' W. W. 

 Engineer, a series of tests made by turning the city pres- 

 sure off and on through an opened three inch suburban 

 main, were carefully carried out, with a forty per cent, 

 success for the dowser's trials. The Professor then carried 

 out a similar series of tests, or rather in this case, pure 

 guesses, with the help of eight of his students, young men 



