I am inclined, do you know, to dispute the verdict of the novelist on this occasion, and to take the part of the charlatan against the author of his being; as far, at least, as regards the genuineness of the art the said charlatan then and there affected to practise. There exists, in fact, strong evidence to show that, in competent hands, the divining rod really does what is pretended of it. This evidence I propose to put before you in the present letter. But, as the subject may be entirely new to you, I had best begin by describing what is meant by a divining rod, and in what the imputed jugglery consists.
Then you are to learn that, in mining districts, a superstition prevails among the people that some are born gifted with an occult power of detecting the proximity of veins of metal, and of underground currents 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, just below where it forks. Having stripped the leaves off, they cut each branch to something more than a foot in length, leaving the stump three inches long. This implement is the divining rod. The hazel is selected for the purpose, because it branches more symmetrically than its neighbours. The hazel-fork is to be held by the branches, one in either hand, the stump or point projecting straight forwards. The arms of the experimenter hang by his sides; but the elbows being bent at a right angle, the fore-arms are advanced horizontally; the hands are held eight to ten inches apart; the knuckles down, and the thumbs outwards. The ends of the branches of the divining fork appear between the roots of the thumbs and fore-fingers.
The operator, thus armed, walks over the ground he intends exploring, in the full expectation that, if he possesses the mystic gift, as soon as he passes over a vein of metal, or an underground spring, the hazel-fork will begin to move spontaneously in his hands, rising or falling as the case may be.
You are possibly amused at my gravely stating, as a fact, an event so unlikely. It is, indeed, natural that you should suppose the whole a juggle, and think the seemingly spontaneous motion of the divining fork to be really communicated to it by the hands of the conjurer—by a sleight, in fact, which he puts in practice when he believes that he is walking over a hidden water-course, or wishes you to believe that there is a vein of metal near. Well, I thought as you do the greater part of my life; and probably the likeliest way of combating your skepticism, will be to tell you how my own conversion took place.