July 21, 1906.I 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
9 1 
Finding Water with a Twig. 
Editor Forest and Stream: 
Your paper in its new dress appeals yet more 
strongly to the love that I have always felt for 
it, and I distinctly want, here and now, to ac¬ 
knowledge its great help and comfort to me in 
many years and places, north, south, east and 
west" where I have joined the fishers and hunters 
in their rambles, their sailings and their tramps, 
and have always been there in thought and 
sympathy, and enjoyed it all. Somehow I al¬ 
ways want to smoke a pipe when I read the 
Forest and Stream. I want to look over to 
where the old gun reposes, and the ancient rig 
hangs up. I love to fancy that the old waist¬ 
coat is heavy with cartridges; that the old knife 
is hanging from the belt; that the old coat with 
its stains, is loaded with the many little things 
which must be at hand in boat or bush. Well, 
I have been through it all, and the delight of 
it thrills me yet, although avoirdupois and other 
weights of advancing years warn me that the 
younger ones must take ,up the burden where 
I dropped it some years ago. I take out the old 
gun once in a while and leisurely and lovingly 
clean it up, and in thought I live over the old 
life, by camp-fire and in boat, where everything 
tasted so good, both edible and spiritual, and 
tobacco was a great delight. Among all the 
pleasures of a long and active life, I count 
among the greatest, the outings and the sport- 
ings that I have enjoyed with good fellows, lots 
of game, and the grand life of “out-of-doors,” 
in old and comfortable clothes. It is all better 
than .society, official functions, or any other 
meetings where one must “behave yourself.” 
I have seen the Forest and Stream grow 
from nothing to what it is now, and the credit 
that is due to the generous labors of “all hands” 
cannot be expressed by me. Some of the 
writers have gone to the happy hunting grounds, 
but they have left with us the records of their 
kindly hearts, and their generous minds, which 
had been softened and mellowed by their cleanly, 
broadened lives in the open. There are others 
still with us, and their narratives in Forest and 
Stream being true records of something that 
modern progress has crowded out, and that we 
shall see no more, deserve to be preserved as 
among the most valuable records of the early 
life of this country. Happily, this seems to be 
a writing age, and these records are of great 
interest, as plain tales are far better than the 
most ornate histories, which somehow seem to 
be always more or less biased. 
I have been much interested from time to 
time in what we must call the “witch-hazel 
tales.” Let me add a little to them. 
Some years ago I was desirous of driving a 
well near my house; for a water supply, so that 
the pipe could be carried under the house and 
into the kitchen sink, where a pump could be 
attached to it. I therefore sent to an adjoining 
town for the driver of wells, who came with 
his tools, arriving about 1 P. M. He asked me 
where I wished to have the well located, and I 
indicated the exact spot. A second man who 
had accompanied the well artist took a forked 
twig from his pocket and began pacing over the 
ground, and at the very spo-t where I desired 
•the well the twig seemed to point directly to 
the ground. The well was driven in the exact 
4 spot indicated, and has never failed to deliver 
an abundant supply of excellent water. It was 
ready for use at 5 P. M. 
I had often heard of this divining business be¬ 
fore, but 1 had never seen it. I asked the 
diviner to lend me the twig, and I went off 
into the fields by myself, and to my surprise it 
acted perfectly in my hands, and I found that I 
also was a medium, and the matter puzzled me 
very greatly. I conversed with the seer and 
found that he was an intelligent and cultivated 
man, and was, at that time, principal of the 
high school in a neighboring town. Fie could 
give me no rational explanation of the phenome¬ 
non, but said that he was so sensitive to run¬ 
ning water and its connection with what he had 
demonstrated, that in driving over a bridge with 
a swift running stream beneath, his wrists would 
twitch perceptibly when holding the reins. Here 
was material to work on, and so I went to the 
a grazing moose. 
Photos by Charles A. Allen. 
fountain head of knowledge and sought for light. 
In my house at that time as an honored guest 
was my father. Learned in the sciences and 
ologies of all the ages, theologian, student, poet, 
teacher, a traveler in many lands, and familiar 
with literature in several languages, he knew 
many things and had a vast experience. To him 
I submitted this problem in natural science, and 
this was his exposition. He said that he had 
known of the so-called divination for water, and 
said that the power or facility, or whatever it 
might be called, undoubtedly existed, and had 
been used with success on many occasions which 
had come under his observation, and said that he 
would give me a theory, but could not vouch 
for its correctness, for want of more exact 
knowledge. He proceeded as follows: 
“All nature is full , of a mysterious power or 
element, which we call electricity. We know 
very little about it, but we know that it is 
present in the earth, the air, the sea; in fact, in 
all water. We have it in our bodies. In some 
persons it is very strongly shown, in others it 
is less apparent. The tendency of some elec¬ 
trical currents is to attract each other, and by 
the shortest lines. In this case we have a 
strongly electrical man, a stream of running or 
percolating water, producing or inciting a cur¬ 
rent of electricity, and a green forked twig, for 
a dry twig will not act. Now we find that the 
wood of the twig is not a conductor of elec¬ 
tricity, neither is the bark, but the sap between 
them is a conductor. So the man holds the 
twig, he walks about until a spot is reached 
where water is producing electrical action; his 
electricity is attracted toward that spot, travers¬ 
ing the sap under the bark of the twig, and 
turning it down toward the reservoir or natural 
manufactory of electrical action, and producing 
the phenomena which has puzzled many people. 
I give you this thing for what it may be worth.” 
In like manner I pass this explanation along 
to the Forest and Stream as a contribution to 
the literature of the art of finding water with a 
forked twig. C. H. Rockwell, 
Rear Admiral, U. S. N.' 
Chatham, Mass., July 11. 
A Grazing Moose. 
Worcester, Mass., July 5. — Editor Forest and 
Stream:. I inclose four photographs of a young 
bull moose; they were taken about the first of 
June of this year, while I was at Roach River, 
Maine, putting in two weeks with the trout. 
This moose is supposed to be one of a number 
that yarded near the Roach River house, last win¬ 
ter. His first appearance on the farm was on a 
rainy Sunday morning, when I succeeded in ob¬ 
taining the photographs, after that he was around 
nearly every day. He was absolutely devoid of 
fear, and if approached quietly would allow one 
to get within twenty-five feet of him. The pho¬ 
tographs were taken at that distance. 
The most interesting picture to me is the one 
in which he is grazing in exactly the same man¬ 
ner that cattle do. I have had many opportunities 
to observe moose feeding during the past twenty 
years, but never before saw one eating from the 
hard ground after the manner of horses and 
cattle. All the guides and woodsmen around here 
say it is very unusual. 
When I left June 13, he was still there, and I 
hope to see him again after July 20, when I go 
up for the fly-fishing. Charles A. Allen. 
[Mr. Allen’s photographs certainly give the lie 
to the old belief that the moose cannot graze on 
level ground. It shows, on the other hand, that 
this animal crops the grass precisely as a horse 
grazes. We have shared this ancient error, and 
have seen a calf moose spread its legs wide apart, 
apparently to get its head down low enough to 
drink milk out of a bucket standing on the 
ground; but in the face of the printed photo¬ 
graph, there is nothing to be said. From the 
pictures, however, we are disposed to think that 
there is nothing unusual in this method of graz¬ 
ing by the moose; but that it is quite the natural 
way. We should be more disposed to think the 
guides and woodsmen had failed to observe close¬ 
ly. Mr. Allen is to be credited with having cor¬ 
rected a very old error.] 
Reminiscences of a Sportsman. 
We have now just from our press a handsome 
book on large paper, of 460 pages, entitled "Rem¬ 
iniscences of a Sportsman,” by J. Parker Whit¬ 
ney, well known as an occasional contributor to 
our paper. The volume, which is of a most in¬ 
teresting character, is published almost wholly 
for private distribution by Mr. Whitney. _ We 
have but a limited number for sale at the price of 
$4, or $4.25 including postage. The book treats 
of fishing and shooting, with many interesting 
episodes occurring in Mr. Whitney’s extensive 
travels abroad and in this country. 
The author is one who, amid very varied and 
successful business experiences in railroad build¬ 
ing, land reclamations, colonizing, mining, manu¬ 
facturing, etc., extending over half a century, has 
found occasion to give the greater part of his 
time to the pursuits of fishing and shooting and 
out-of-door sports; and he has had many inter¬ 
esting adventures connected with these pursuits. 
We shall recur to the Reminiscences. 
