st of a tumbler, and
which strikes the hours, is moved by any similar force." But many of the
mysterious effects of these so-called divining-rods were no doubt due to
clever imposture. In the year 1790, Plunet, a native of Dauphine,
claimed a power over the divining-rod which attracted considerable
attention in Italy. But when carefully tested by scientific men in
Padua, his attempts to discover buried metals completely failed; and at
Florence he was detected trying to find out by night what he had
secreted to test his powers on the morrow. The astrologer Lilly made
sundry experiments with the divining-rod, but was not always successful;
and the Jesuit, Kircher, tried the powers of certain rods which were
said to have sympathetic influences for particular metals, but they
never turned on the approach of these. Once more, in the "Shepherd's
Calendar," we find a receipt to make the "Mosaic wand to find hidden
treasure" without the intervention of a human operator:--"Cut a hazel
wand forked at the upper end like a Y. Peel off the rind, and dry it in
a moderate heat, then steep it in the juice of wake-robin or nightshade,
and cut the single lower end sharp; and where you suppose any rich mine
or hidden treasure is near, place a piece of the same metal you conceive
is hid, or in the earth, to the top of one of the forks by a hair, and
do the like to the other end; pitch the sharp single end lightly to the
ground at the going down of the sun, the moon being in the increase, and
in the morning at sunrise, by a natural sympathy, you will find the
metal inclining, as it were pointing, to the places where the other is
hid."

According to a Tuscany belief, the almond will discover treasures; and
the golden rod has long had the reputation in England of pointing to
hidden springs of water, as well as to treasures of gold and silver.
Similarly, the spring-wort and primrose--the key-flower--revealed the
hidden recesses in mountains where treasures were concealed, and the
mystic fern-seed, termed "wish-seed," was supposed in the Tyrol to make
known hidden gold; and, according to a Lithuanian form of this
superstition, one who secures treasures by this means will be pursued by
adders, the guardians of the gold. Plants of this kind remind us of the
magic "sesame" which, at the command of Ali Baba, in the story of the
"Forty Thieves," gave him immediate admission to the secret
treasure-cave. Once more, among further plants possessing the