In 1659, the Jesuit, Gaspard Schott, tells us that this magic rod was at this period used in every town in Germany, and that he had frequently had opportunities of seeing it used in the discovery of hidden treasure.  He further adds:—­“I searched with the greatest care into the question whether the hazel rod had any sympathy with gold and silver, and whether any natural property set it in motion.  In like manner, I tried whether a ring of metal, held suspended by a thread in the midst 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 same mystic property may be mentioned the sow-thistle, which, when invoked,