me. Don't let your imagination suddenly instal
you perpetual chairman of the universal fresh-water company, or of the
general gold-mine-discovery-proprietary-association. What I have to fell
you falls very far short of so splendid a mark.

But perhaps you know nothing at all about the divining rod. Then I will
enlighten your primitive ignorance.

You are to understand, that, in mining districts, a superstition
prevails among the people, that some are gifted with an occult power of
detecting the proximity of veins of metal, and of underground springs of
water. In Cornwall, they hold that about one in forty possesses this
faculty. The mode, of exercising it is very simple. They cut a hazel
twig that forks naturally into two equal branches; and having stripped
the leaves off, they cut the stump of the twig, to the length of three
or four inches, and each branch to the length of a foot or something
less: for the end of a branch is meant to be held in each hand, in such
a manner that the stump of the twig may project straight forwards. The
position is this: the elbows are bent, the forearms, and hands advanced,
the knuckles turned downwards, the ends of the branches come out between
the thumbs and roots of the forefingers, the hands are supinated, the
inner side of each is turned towards its fellow, as they are held a few
inches apart. The mystic operator, thus armed, walks over the ground he
intends exploring, with the full expectation, that, when he passes over
a vein of metal, or underground spring of water, the hazel fork will
move spontaneously in his hands, the point or stump rising or falling as
the case may be. This hazel fork is the DIVINING ROD. The hazel has the
honour of being preferred, because it divides into nearly equal branches
at angles the nearest equal.

Then, assuming that there is something in this provincial superstition,
four questions present themselves to us for examination.

Does the divining fork really move of itself in the hands of the
operator, and not through motion communicated to it by the intentional
or unintentional action of the muscles of his hands or arms?

What relation has the person of the operator to the motion observed in
the divining rod?

What is the nature of the influence to which the person of the operator
serves as a conductor?

Finally, what is the thing divined? the proximity of veins of metal or
of running water? what or what not?

Then, let me at once premise, th