he shrubbery, where she knew,
from former trials, the divining rod would move in her hands. It did so,
to my friend's extreme astonishment; and even continued to do so, when,
availing himself of Mrs. R.'s permission, my friend grasped her hands
with such firmness, as to preclude the possibility of any muscular
action of her wrist or fingers influencing the result.

On another day my friend took with him pieces of copper and iron wire
about a foot and a half long, bent something into the form of the letter
V, with length enough in the horizontal limbs of the figure to form a
sufficient _handle_ for either branch of these new-fashioned divining
forks. He found that these instruments moved quite as freely in Mrs.
R.'s hands as the hazel fork had done. Then he coated the two handles of
one of them with sealing-wax, leaving, however, the extreme ends free
and uncovered. When Mrs. R. used the rod so prepared, grasping it by the
parts alone which were coated with sealing-wax, and walked over the same
piece of ground as before, the wires exhibited no movement whatever. As
often, however, as, with no greater change than touching the free ends
of the wire with her thumbs, Mrs. R. established again a direct contact
with the instrument, it again moved. The motion again ceased, as often
as that direct contact was interrupted.

This simple narrative, made to me by the late Mr. George Fairholm,
carried conviction to my mind of the reality of the phenomenon. I asked
my friend why he had not pursued the subject further. He said he had
often thought of doing so; and had, he believed, been mainly prevented
by meeting with a work of the Count de Tristan, entitled, "Recherches
sur quelques Effluves Terrestres," published at Paris in 1826, in which
facts similar to those which he had himself verified were narrated, and
a vast body of additional curious experiments detailed.

At my friend's instance, I sent to Paris for the book, which I have,
however, only recently read through. I recommend it to your perusal, if
the subject should happen to interest your wayward curiosity. Any thing
like an elaborate analysis of it is out of the question in a letter of
this sort; but I shall borrow from it a few leading facts and
observations, which, at all events, will surprise you. I am afraid,
after all, I should have treated the Count as a visionary, and not have
yielded to his statements the credence they deserve, but for the good
British evidence I