John Francis Sprague
Published: 2015-06-28
Total Pages: 288
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Excerpt from Sprague's Journal of Maine History, 1913 (A paper read before the Piscataquis Historical Society.) In a bulletin recently published under the authority of the United States government, by the Department of the Interior, U.S. Geological Survey, Water Supply Paper 255, titled Underground Water for Farm Use, on page 15, appears the following: Use Of Divining Rod. Numerous mechanical devices have been proposed for detecting the presence of underground water, ranging in complexity from the simple forked branch of the witch-hazel, peach, or other wood to more or less elaborate mechanical and electrical contrivances. Many of the operators of these devices, especially those who use the home-cut forked branch, are entirely honest in the belief that the working of the rod is influenced by agencies: usually regarded as electric currents following underground streams of water that are entirely independent of their own bodies, and many uneducated people have implicit faith in their ability to locate underground water in this way. The writer then gives the results of his own experiments with the rod, and goes on to say: No movement of the rod from causes outside of the body could be detected and it soon became obvious that the view held by other men of science is correct that the operation of the divining rod is generally due to unconscious movements of the body or the muscles of the hand. The experiments made show that these movements happen most frequently at places where the operators experience has led him to believe that water may be found. The uselessness of the divining rod is indicated by the facts that it may be worked at will by the operator, that he fails to detect strong water current in tunnels and other channels that afford no surface indications of water, and that his locations in limestone regions where water flows in well-defined channels are no more successful than those dependent on mere guesses. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.
