THE CORNISH MINERS' DOWSING ROD.

Evening Star, Issue 3313, 2 October 1873, Page 3

THE CORNISH MINERS' DOWSING ROD.

The following paper on the above subject was read by Mr A. Hi Ross at the last meeting of the Roslyn and Kaikorai Institute : I have recently noticed in the columns of one of the Dunedin daily papers two letters referring to the “ Cornish Miners’ Dowsing Rod,” in which the writer, after quoting from a work on the same subject, which was published by Messrs Chambers twenty years ago, as well as from a work entitled “Truths contained in Popular Superstitions,” by Dr Herbert Mayo, a third edition of which was published by Blackwood twenty-two years ago, proceeds to narrate somewhat of his own experience in the following sentences : —“ Believing that it might come to be of use in a mining country like this, where the precious metal more than coal puts forth a powerful attraction, I have made many careful experiments witli a rod, which I constructed upon the principle of the Cornish miners. I have tried its applicability some fifty-five times, over a period of two years—in wet weather and in dry, in hot and in cold, in light and in darkness, under cover and hi the open air, in the field and in the bush, in the presence of several witnesses—and in all cases with very startling results, proving to myself and all who have seen it, that the ‘ divining rod ’ is, after all, no misnomer, but is regulated by a power of a decided character, and as mysterious as magnetism, if not more so. How it might act underground I cannot tell, never having had an opportunity of testing it there, but above the surface I have in every instance found it worthy the reputation it gcti, of being really and truly a divining rod, which, if properly studied and made use of, might be of great service in the working of mines. As I have conducted all ray experiments in the most careful manner, in the presence of a variety of witnesses, and taken notes of every incident worth recording revealed by the movements of the rod, I am prepared, if yon like, to write you another letter, giving a sketch of its range of operations so far as I have seen it, and shall show how any man may try it for himself.” Thus the writer concluded his first letter, and I must confess that I, and probably many others who are present to-night, watched with great interest the appearance of the promised communication. The second letter appeared two days after the first. In this the writer, as he says, “ in order to save persons, who know or profess to know everything, the trouble of attempting to write down as a meaningless piece of folly what I have ascertained to be a very extraordinary scientific fact,” again quotes from “ Chambers,” giving an ex tract which closes with these words “Wait for further experiments, and whenever and wherever they arise, scrutinise them closely, but give them fair play.” He then says, “ Now for the modus operandi, and that is as simple as it is mysterious, and differs, in my experience, in nothing from the method referred to by Messrs Chambers. I have found the following £he most convenient way of testing the principle : —Take a common walking-stick, and reduce the length of it some six or eight inches. Let two persons (and their suitability can poly be found out by experiment) facing each other, hold it in a horizontal position, grasping it easily, yet firmly, placing the hands alternately. In a few minutes the rod will exhibit a new property of a very decided character, oscillating anil darting about, now attracted and now repelled, and impelled hither and Either in ways so varied as not to be understood without being seen, this new power being dependent, perhaps, upon the joint influence of the sensitive organisms of the operators and their surroundings, or upon other conditions not yet within the pale of ascertained science. If I had merely read or heard about such a thing, I should in every probability have treated it without further inquiry as an absurdity, but, as explained in my last letter, I have subjected it to the most rigorous test in the presence of many witnesses, and found it to be one other grave fapt which must be brought up before the scientific world of our day for scientific examination,” .. I think I need scarcely say that I was disappointed on perusing the second letter, from which I have given the extract. I expected (hat details of experiments j»a4e--U not of tfle

whole fifty-five mentioned in the first letter, at least of a few of them —of the minerals discovered by its use, their character, their extent, their value, the locality or localities in which the experiments were made. The writer told as that “ he had conducted his experiments in the most careful manner in the presence of a variety of witnesses, that he had taken notes of every incident worth recording revealed by the movements of the rod,” and that ho was prepared to write another letter giving a sketch of the range of its operations so far as he had seen it, and would show how any man might try it for himself. But I fail to perceive that in his second letter he has done anything of the kind. True, he tells us that a walking stick —a common walking stick —having its length reduced some six or eight inches, when held under certain circumstances in the hands of two persons, exhibits a new property of a very decided character, oscillating and darting about, now attracted and now repelled phenomena somewhat similar to those shown by a “turning, or dancing, or capering table, ’ or pith balls, when placed in connection with the conductor of an electrical fhachine ; but he does not show that the shortened walking-stick possesses any of the properties ascribed to the “ dowsing rod ” by the Cornish miners, many of the most intelligent of whom believe that some of the most valuable mines in the country have been discovered through its agency.

If, however, we are to believe Mr Oxland, of Plymouth, who is considered an authority on everthing connected with tin mining in Cornwall, a stick, such as that already described, cannot be expected to possess the properties of a virouia divinatoria. He thus describes the rod 'in a woik on “The Useful Metals and their Alloys,” published only six years ago (not twenty, as were the works of Chambers and Mayo, quoted by the writer referred _ to). “ This instrument is composed of two pieces of hazel-twig tied together with pack-thread or twine, the root-ends being brought together, and the smaller being held in the hands. Hazle rods, cut in the winter and dried, are said to answer best; but apple-tree suckers or twigs of peach-tree, plum, currant, willow, or oak, even if green, will answer tolerably well. If tied with silk, worsted, or hair, it will not act. The rod is said to act in any hands, but much more energetically with some than with others.” “ The land to be examined is explored by the person carrying the rod (who is called the ‘dowser’) walking slowly over it from north to south, holding the rod in his hands—not perpendicularly, but at an angle of 70dog. When approaching the lode, the rod feels loose in the hands, and is repelled towar is the face ; on being brought to its former position, it is again repelled until the foremost foot is over the lode, when it will be irrisistibly drawn down; and in this position it will continue until the lode is passed over, when the repulsion will be again perceived. “ Most of our readers will remember the 1 divining rod’ and the German adept Doustcrawivel, so admirably delineated in the ‘ Antiquary,’ and marvel to find the superstition gravely repeated in our day as one actually practised. “The distance between the point of appearance and disappearance of the depression indicates the thickness of the lodes. The course of the lode may also be traced by walking in zigzag lines over it. This method of discovering the course of lodes, if in practised hands, is indisputably of great practical value, and renders efficient service where shodcing cannot be adopted, for all lodes or veins are not alike affected by the agencies already referred to, some of them remaining comparatively unaffected, and producing no shode-stones.” For the information o; those present who are not conversant with tin mining operations, I may say that, supposing a stone containing tin, which is easily recognised by its superior weight, to have been discovered in a valley, or on the side of a hill, it would be termed a shode-stone, and a search undertaken to discover its original site would be termed shodein;/. “ The older miners declare that the search for shode-stones, in some instances has originated, not with the finding of a stone of ore, but from certain appearances of dancing lights, or burning drakes, as they are called, resembling will-o’-the-wisps, which have been repeatedly observed at intervals over a particular line of country.” Mr Oxland, from whom I have quoted, says—“ Although we cannot at present account for these phenomena, such observations are worthy of being registered, seeing the important discoveries now being made in the relations existing between magnetism and voltaic and frictional electricity, which may throw valuable light upon such observations and render them of practical utility. ” Professor Ansted, however, disposes of both “burning drakes” and “divining rods” in a summary manner. Writing on the various methods adopted for the discovery of mineral veins, he says: “We do not include among methods those peculiar powers assumed by some persons, even at the present day, who believe in the divining rod, and fancy they see a lambent flame floating over productive lodes, although it would not be right to omit all notice of so peculiar a superstition, which still prevails in some districts of Cornwalland in a foot note the learned professor writes yet more strongly: “ It is singular,” says he, “ that the divining rod should have so far entered into the list of methods for discovering ore in Cornwall as to occupy in its description several folio pages in the otherwise sensible and useful treatise by Mr W, Bryce, well known to all persons interested in the literature of mines.” This book bears date 1778, and _ in concluding his account of the “ Yirgula Divinatoria,” as it is there designated, the author gives a number of illustrations of its successful use in Cornwall, He then says : “ Hence it is very obvious how useful the rod may he for the discovery of lodes in the hands of an adept in that science ; but it is remarkable that, although it inclines to all metals, in the hands of unskilful persons, and to some more quick and lively than to others, yet it has been found to dip equally to a poor lode and to a rich one. 1 know that a grain of metal attracts the virgula as strongly as a pound; nor is this any disadvantage in its use in mining; for if it discovered only rich mines, or the richer parts of a mine, the great prizes in the mining lottery would soon be drawn, and future adventurers would be discouraged from trying their fortune.” The professor proceeds to say, “ It is singular to find such opinions prevail; but the history of the period abounds with similar instances, and the divining rod is only one of a large class of deceptions where success would seem to depend only on unblushing impudence, or the greatest self-delusion on one hand, and the most wilful blindness on the other. That honest, trustworthy, and even intelligent people have given way to the delusion is, however, beyond question.” The people of Cornwall may or may not be generally subject to self-delusion to a greater extent than arc the inhabitants of other places, but that certain classes are over-credulous and ton superstitions cannot be doubted. We find that even the holed rocks, or tolmens, as they are termed, which are scattered over the dark moors and hilly districts of the country have been from a very early period regarded with superstitious reverence, and at the present time the belief in the healing virtue of those stones is by no means extinct. Young children are at certain seasons of the year put through the holes in these tolmens by their parents, who fancy that by this means their sickly infants will be restored to health. Adults are said also to derive soiqe benefit from creel ting through the holes, when subject to rheumatism or a “ orick in the back,” provided they follow certain prescribed regulations. Thus the patient is first required to crawl nine times through the holed stone alternately, from one side to the other, and after undergoing this ordeal, to sleep for a specified time with a sixpence under his head. The Cornish people also believe that the same healing benefit is derived from passing under brambles or under a slit or hole in a tree as under rocks. Thus, at the fishing village of Polperro, in Eastern Cornwall, boils were supposed vo be cured by poisons who wore the subjects of them crawling beneath a bramble that had grown into the soil at both ends, and some other maladies by passing through a slit in an ash sapling befoie sunrise. It is not surprising that people who are cretinlons enough to believe in these things, should also believe in “ burning drakes” and “divining rods.” The belief in both, however, appears to he dying out, for Mr Oxland tells us that the “ older miners” only attach importance to the V burning drakes — the inference dciivable feeing tfeafc tfee younger have more sense than to

do so; and the contradictory descriptions which are given of both the construction and properties of the * ‘ divining rod ” are not compatible with a settled faith in the existence of either one or the other. In other mining districts in England traditions prevail as to the wonders said to have been wrought by the divining rod at some time or other ; but there exists no belief in its virtue. I remember that when over thirty years ago I visited the lead mines in Weardalc in the County of Durham, Teesdale in Yorkshire, and the mine of Silverband, situate on the Westmoreland side of Crossfell, I heard of a wonderful feat that had been performed by a Frenchman with a stick. The story as I heard it was as follows A Frenchman one day called at one of the smelting houses, and offered to give the person in charge 5s if he would allow him to dip his stick into tlte molten metal and retain all that stuck to it. The offer was accepted, the stick was immersed in the metal to a depth of five or six inches ; then gradually withdrawn, the Frenchman twirling it slowly between his fingers as he lifted it up. When taken completely out, to the astonishment of those present, there adhered to the end of the stick a knob of solid silver, of about a pound weight. This story might probably have some foundation in fact; but we at this time would be more likely to attribute the results - to a knowledge of metallurgic chemistry on the part of the Frenchman than to any extraordinary virtue possessed by his stick; possibly he well knew the great difference between the melting points of silver and lead — that of silver being 1,873deg. F., while lead melts at ClOdeg. of the same scale, and by a skilful manipulation of his stick managed to effect the separation of the metals in the process of cooling. It think it not at all improbable that we are in some measure indebted to this tradition for the most important modern invention connected witli the preparation of of lead —the desilvering process of Pattinsou. Mr Pattinson having been born and brought up in the immediate neighborhood of the districts referred to, was doubtless well acquainted with the story I have related. He was for some time a grocer in Hexham ; fortunately ho was unsuccessful ; he removed to Newcastle, and obtained a subordinate situation in the soap-works of the late Mr Anthony Clapham. In the cuttingloft of this establishment, a few years prior to his great discovery, he might have been seen holding one of the handles attached to the wire at that time employed in cutting the soap into bars or wedges. When in this situation, his mind was turned to the study of practical chemistry by witnessing some experiments made by the manager in connection with bleaching palm oil, so as to render it available in the manufacture of white soap—he prosecuted his chemical studies with gre;jt zeal, and with such success as to raise himself from the subordinate position he occupied to that of being one of the ablest animnst extensive manufacturing chemists of his day. Time will not permit of my detailing the process by which Mr Pattinson succeeded in effecting the extraction of the silver. One extraordinary circumstance in relation to it is, that the lead or the metal of lesser fusibility is that which first crystallises out. The rationale of this curious phenomenon is said never to have been satisfactorily explained. This circumstance, however, tends to render the story of the “ Frenchman’s stick” a little problematical, if not to place it in the same category with “ burning drakes ” and “ divining rods.”