Part 5

The earliest use made of the divining rod by the miners was for the discovery of the lode. So late as three years ago (1850), the process has been tried. The method of procedure was to cut the twig of an hazel or apple-tree of twelve months' growth, into a forked shape, and to hold this by both hands in a peculiar way, walking across the land until the twig bent, which was taken as an indication of the locality of the lode. The person who generally practises this divination boasts himself to be the seventh son of a seventh son. The twig of hazel bends in his hands to the conviction of the miners that ore is present; but then the peculiar manner in which the twig is held, bringing muscular action to bear upon it, accounts for its gradual deflection, and the circumstance of the strata walked over always containing ore gives a further credit to the process of divination.

The vulgar notion still prevalent in the north of England of the hazel's tendency to a vein of lead ore, seam or stratum of coal, etc., seems to be a vestige of this rod divination.

The virgula divina or baculus divinatorius is a forked branch in the form of a Y, cut off an hazel stick, by means whereof people have pretended to discover mines, springs, etc., underground. The method of using it is this: the person who bears it, walking very slowly over the places where he suspects mines or springs may be, the effluvia exhaling from the metals, or vapor from the water impregnating the wood, makes it dip or decline, which is the sign of a discovery.

In the Living Library or Historical Meditations we read: "No man can tell why forked sticks of hazill (rather than sticks of other trees growing upon the very same places) are fit to shew the places where the veins of gold and silver are." See Lilly's History of his Life and Times, for a curious experiment (which he confesses, however, to have failed), to discover hidden treasure by the hazel rod.

In the Gentleman's Magazine, for February, 1752, xxii, 77, we read: "M. Linnæus, when he was upon his voyage to Scania, hearing his secretary highly extol the virtues of his divining rod, was willing to convince himself of its insufficiency, and for that purpose concealed a purse of one hundred ducats under a ranunculus which grew by itself in a meadow and bid the secretary find it if he could. The wand discovered nothing, and M. Linnæus's mark was soon trampled down by the company who were present; so that when M. Linnæus went to finish the experiment by fetching the gold himself, he was utterly at a loss where to seek it. The man with the wand assisted him and pronounced that it could not lie the way they were going, but quite the contrary; so he pursued the direction of his wand and actually dug out the gold. M. Linnæus adds, that such another experiment would make a proselyte of him." We read in the same book for November, 1751, xxi, 507: "So early as Agricola, the divining rod was in much request, and has obtained great credit for its discovery where to dig for metals and springs of water; for some years past its reputation has been on the decline, but lately it has been revived by an ingenious gentleman who, from numerous experiments, hath good reason to believe its effects to be more than imagination. He says that hazel and willow rods, he has by experience found, will actually answer, with all persons in a good state of health, if they are used with moderation and at some distance of time, and after meals, when the operator is in good spirits. The hazel, willow and elm are all attracted by springs of water. Some persons have the virtue intermittently; the rod in their hands will attract one half hour and repel the next. The rod is attracted by all metals, coals, amber and limestone, but with different degrees of strength. The best rods are those from the hazel or nut tree, as they are pliant and tough and cut in the winter months. A shoot that terminates equally forked is to be met with--two single ones of a length and size may be tied together by a thread and will answer as well as the other."

In the supplement to the Athenian Oracle, p. 234, we read that "the experiment of a hazel's tendency 'to a vein' of lead ore is limited to St. John Baptist's Eve, and that with an hazel of that same year's growth."

There is a treatise in French entitled, La Phisique Occulte ou Traite de la Baguette Divinatoire, et de son utilite pour la decouverte des sources d'Eau, des Minieres, de Tresors caches, des Voleurs et des Meurtriers fugitifs: par M. L. L. de Vallemont pretre et docteur en theologie; 12 mo., Amsterdam, 1693. 464 pages.

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At the end of Henry Alan's edition of Cicero's treatise De Divinatione, and De Fate, 1839, will be found "Catalogus auctorum de divinatione ac fato, de oraculis, de somniis, de astrologia, de dæmonibus, de magia id genus aliis."

With the divining rod seems connected a lusus naturae of ash tree bough resembling the litui of the Roman augurs and the Christian pastoral staff which still obtains a place, if not on this account I know not why, in the catalogue of popular superstitions. Seven or eight years ago, I remember to have seen one of these, which I thought extremely beautiful and curious, in the house of an old woman at Beeralston, in Devonshire, of whom I would most gladly have purchased it; but she declined parting with it on any account, thinking it would be unlucky to do so. Mr. Gostling, in the Antiquarian Repertory, ii, 164, has some observations on this subject. He thinks the lituus or staff, with the crook at one end, which the augurs of old carried as badges of their profession and instruments in the superstitious exercise of it, was not made of metal but of the substance above mentioned. Whether, says he, to call it a work of art or nature may be doubted: some were probably of the former kind; others, Hogarth, in his Analysis of Beauty, calls lusus naturæ found in plants of different sorts, and in one of the plates of that work gives a specimen of a very elegant one, a branch of ash. I should rather, continues he, style it a distemper or distortion of nature; for it seems the effect of a wound by some insect which, piercing to the heart of the plant with its proboscis, poisons that, while the bark remains uninjured and proceeds in its growth, but formed into various stripes, flatness and curves for the want of the support which nature designed it. The beauty, some of these arrive at, might well consecrate them to the mysterious fopperies of heathenism, and their rarity occasions imitations of them by art. The pastoral staff of the Church of Rome seems to have been formed from the vegetable litui, though the general idea is that it is an imitation of the shepherd's crook. The engravings given in the Antiquarian Repertory are of carved branches of the ash.

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The relations in which some men stand to nature are sometimes so close as to enable them to make discoveries which are impossible to others.

This is, for instance, the case with persons who feel the presence of waters or of metals. The former have, from time immemorial, generally used a wand, the so-called divining rod, which, according to Pliny, was already known to the ancient Etruscans as a means for the discovery of hidden springs.

An Italian author, Amoretti, who has given special attention to this subject, states that at least every fifth man is susceptible to the influence of water and metals, but this is evidently an over-estimate.

In recent times many persons have been known to possess this gift of discovering hidden springs or subterranean masses of water, and these have but rarely employed an instrument.

Catharine Beutler, of Thurgovia, in Switzerland, and Anna Maria Brugger, of the same place, were both so seriously affected by the presence of water that they fell into violent nervous excitement when they happened to cross places beneath which, large quantities were concealed, and became perfectly exhausted.

In France, a class of men, called sourciers, have for ages possessed this instinctive power of perceiving the presence of water, and others, like the famous Abbe Paramelle, have cultivated the natural gift till they were finally enabled, by a mere cursory examination of a landscape, to ascertain whether large masses of water were hidden anywhere, and to indicate the precise spots where they might be found.

Why water and metals should almost always go hand in hand in connection with this peculiar gift, is not quite clear; but the staff of Hermes, having probably the form of the divining rod was always represented as giving the command over the treasures of the earth, and the Orphic Hymn (v. 527,) calls it--hence, the golden rod, producing wealth and happiness.

On the other hand, the Aquæ Virga, the nymph of springs, had also a divining rod in her hand, and Numa, inspired by a water-nymph, established the worship of waters in connection of that of the dead. For here, also, riches and death seem to have entered into a strange alliance.

Del Rio, in his Disquisitiones Magicæ, mentions thus the Rahuri of Spain--the lynx-eyed, as he translates the name--who were able, on Wednesdays and Saturdays, to discover all the veins of metals or of water beneath the surface, all hidden treasures and corpses in their coffins.

There is at least one instance recorded, where a person possessed the power to see even more than the Rahuris. This was a Portuguese lady, Pedegache, who first attracted attention by being able to discover subterranean springs and their connections, a gift which brought her great honors after she had informed the king of all the various supplies of water which were hidden near a palace which he was about to build. Shafts were sunk according to her directions, and not only water was found but also various soils and stones which she had foretold would have to be pierced.

She also seems to have cultivated her talent, for we hear of her next being able to discover treasures, even valuable antique statues in the interior of houses, and finally she reached such a degree of intuition that she saw the inner parts of the human body, and pointed out their diseases and defects.

The divining rod, originally a twig of willow or hazel, is often made of metal, and the impression prevails that in such cases an electric current arising from the subterranean water or metals enters the diviner's body by the feet, passes through him, and finally affects the two branches of the rod, which represent opposite poles. It is certain that when the electric current is interrupted, the power of the divining rod is suspended.

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Perhaps, like many of your correspondents, I had imagined that the supposed properties of the divining rod had been a discovery recently made, either by the great American artist, Mr. Barnum, or by one of Dii Minores of this country. To my mortification, however, I find that it is "as old as the hills," or at least contemporaneous with the Sortes Virgilianæ, et id genus omne. I have before me the works of Mr. Abraham Cowley, in two vols. 12 mo., London, 1681, and in one of his Pindarique Odes, addressed to Mr. Hobs, I find the following lines:

To walk in ruines like vain ghosts, we love, And with fond divining wands, We search among the dead For treasures buried.

And to these lines is added the following note:

"Virgula Divina, or divining wand, is a two-forked branch of a hazel tree which is used for the finding out either of veins or hidden treasures of gold or silver, and being carried about bends downwards (or rather is said to do so,) when it comes to the place where they lye."