Still more analogous than turning tables to the savage use of inspired sticks for directing the inquirer to a lost object or to a criminal, is the modern employment of the divining-rod—­a forked twig which, held by the ends, revolves in the hands of the performer when he reaches the object of his quest.  He, like the savage cited, is occasionally agitated in a convulsive manner; and cases are quoted in which the twig writhes when held in a pair of tongs!  The best-known modern treatise on the divining-rod is that of M. Chevreul, ‘La Baguette Divinatoire’ (1854).  We have also ‘L’Histoire du Merveilleux dans les Temps Modernes,’ by M. Figuier (1860).  In 1781 Thouvenel published his 600 experiments with Bleton and others; and Hegel refers to Amoretti’s collection of hundreds of cases.  The case of Jacques Aymard, who in the seventeenth century discovered a murderer by the use of the rod in true savage fashion, is well known.  In modern England the rod is used in the interests of private individuals and public bodies (such as Trinity College, Cambridge) for the discovery of water.

Professor Barrett has lately published a book of 280 pages, in which evidence of failures and successes is collected.[10] Professor Barrett gives about one hundred and fifty cases, in which he was only able to discover, on good authority, twelve failures.  He gives a variety of tests calculated to check frauds and chance coincidence, and he publishes opinions, hostile or agnostic, by geologists.  The evidence, as a general rule, is what is called first-hand in other inquiries.  The actual spectators, and often the owners of the land, or the persons in whose interest water was wanted, having been present, give their testimony; and it is certain that the ‘diviner’ is called in by people of sense and education, commonly too practical to have a theory, and content with getting what they want, especially where scientific experts have failed.[11]

In Mr. Barrett’s opinion, the subconscious perception of indications of the presence of water produces an equally unconscious muscular ‘spasm,’ which twirls the rod till it often breaks.  Yet ’it is almost impossible to imitate its characteristic movement by any voluntary effort.’  I have myself held the hands of an amateur performer when the twig was moving, and neither by sight nor touch could I detect any muscular movement on his part, much less a spasm.  The person was bailiff on a large estate, and, having accidentally discovered that he possessed the gift, used it when he wanted wells dug for the tenants on the property.

The whole topic is obscure; nor am I concerned here with the successes or failures of the divining-rod.  But the movements of the twig have never, to my knowledge, been attributed by modern English performers to the operation of spirits.  They say ‘electricity.’  Mr. Tylor merely writes: 

’The action of the famous divining-rod, with its curiously versatile sensibility to water, ore, treasure, and thieves, seems to belong partly to trickery and partly to more or less conscious direction by honester operators.’