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BULLETIN OF THE NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY. 
has been investigated more or less thoroughly a number of times, and 
as a result, most scientific men consider, I believe, that there is no 
physical connection whatever between the performance of a mineral 
rod in the hands of an expert and the presence of minerals or water, 
but that the observed phenomena of movements of the rods, are all 
explicable upon known psychological principles of suggestion, associa- 
tion, etc. The expert users of the rods (for not all people are the 
proper kind of “ medium,”) are supposed to be those who combine 
great credulity with a power of subconscious observation and shrewd- 
ness in guessing probable localities, and this mental state reacts 
unconsciously upon the physical being, causing the rod to be turned 
downward in probable places. Hence the mineral-rods bend at 
certain places not at all from external (physical or objective) but 
entirely from internal (mental or subjective) causes. A somewhat 
different explanation, however, has recently been given, at least for 
the finding of water, by an English investigator, W. F. Barrett. He 
considers it possible that the user of the rod may hypnotize himself by 
the concentration of attention upon the point of the rod, and in that 
state become susceptible to influences from without to which others, 
and he himself ordinarily, are entirely insensitive, and that there may 
be some still unknown physical connection between the presence of 
water and the mental state of the user of the rod. 
The origin of the belief in divining rods has been traced by Fiske 
in his “ Myths and Myth-makers.” Other important literature upon 
the subject may be found as follows : Nature, October, 1897, page 568, 
November, page 79; January, 1898, page 221 ; November, 1899, page 
1. There is also a short article of interest in the St. John Globe for May, 
15, 1900, and another in the same paper, Januuary 2, 1901. Most 
important of all are Barrett’s two monographs in the Proceedings of 
the Society for Psychical Research, 1897 and 1900. 
39. — On the Physiography of the Basin of the Negoot, or South 
Tobique, Lakes. 
At the head of the south or “ right-hand ” branch of the Tobique 
River, in the very heart of the New Brunswick highlands, lies a group 
of lakes, which, while not including our most beautiful single lake- 
(i. e. Nictor), nevertheless forms by far the finest group in the province- 
