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Book of Buried Treasure

<h3> CHAPTER XIV </h3> <h4> THE WIZARDRY OF THE DIVINING ROD </h4> Washington Irving was so thoroughly versed in the lore of buried treasure that the necromancy of the divining rod, as a potent aid to this kind of industry, had received his studious attention. For many centuries, the magic wand of hazel, or various other woods, has been used, and implicitly believed in, as a guide to the whereabouts of secrets hidden underground, whether of running water, veins of metal, or buried treasure. There is nothing far-fetched, or contrary to the fact, in the lively picture of Dr. Knipperhausen, that experienced magician, who helped Wolfert Webber seek the treasure concealed by pirates on the Manhattan Island of the Knickerbocker Dutch of the "Tales of a Traveler." "He had passed some years of his youth among the Harz mountains of Germany, and had derived much valuable instruction from the miners, touching the mode of seeking treasure buried in the earth. He had prosecuted his studies also under a traveling sage who united the mysteries of medicine with magic and legerdemain. His mind therefore had become stored with all kinds of mystic lore; he had dabbled a little in astrology, alchemy, divination; knew how to detect stolen money, and to tell where springs of water lay hidden; in a word, by the dark nature of his knowledge he had acquired the name of the High-German-Doctor, which is pretty nearly equivalent to that of necromancer. "The doctor had often heard rumors of treasure being buried in various parts of the island, and had long been anxious to get on the traces of it. No sooner were Wolfert's waking and sleeping vagaries confided to him, than he beheld in them confirmed symptoms of a case of money digging, and lost no time in probing it to the bottom. Wolfert had long been sorely oppressed in mind by the golden secret, and as a family physician is a kind of father confessor, he was glad of any opportunity of unburdening himself. So far from curing, the doctor caught the malady from his patient. The circumstances unfolded to him awakened all his cupidity; he had not a doubt of money being buried somewhere in the neighborhood of the mysterious crosses and offered to join Wolfert in the search. "He informed him that much secrecy and caution must be observed in enterprises of this kind; that money is only to be digged for at night; with certain forms and ceremonies, and burning of drugs; the repeating of mystic words, and above all, that the seekers must first be provided with a divining rod, which had the wonderful property of pointing to the very spot on the surface of the earth under which treasure lay hidden. As the doctor had given much of his mind to these matters, he charged himself with all the necessary preparations, and, as the quarter of the moon was propitious, he undertook to have the divining rod ready by a certain night. "Wolfert's heart leaped with joy at having met with so learned and able a coadjutor. Everything went on secretly, but swimmingly. The doctor had many consultations with his patient, and the good woman of the household lauded the comforting effect of his visits. In the meantime the wonderful divining rod, that great key to nature's secrets, was duly prepared. "The following note was found appended to this passage in the handwriting of Mr. Knickerbocker. 'There has been much written against the divining rod by those light minds who are ever ready to scoff at the mysteries of nature; but I fully join with Dr. Knipperhausen in giving it my faith. I shall not insist upon its efficacy in discovering the concealment of stolen goods, the boundary stones of fields, the traces of robbers and murderers, or even the existence of subterranean springs and streams of water; albeit, I think these properties not to be readily discredited; but of its potency in discovering veins of precious metal, and hidden sums of money and jewels, I have not the least doubt. Some said that the rod turned only in the hands of persons who had been born in particular months of the year; hence astrologers had recourse to planetary influences when they would procure a talisman. Others declared that the properties of the rod were either an effect of chance or the fraud of the holder, or the work of the devil...." The worthy and learned Mr. Knickerbocker might have gone on to quote authorities by the dozen. This weighty argument of his is not delivered with a wink to the reader. He is engaged in no solemn foolery. If one desires to find pirates' gold, it is really essential to believe in the divining rod and devoutly obey its magic messages. This is proven to the hilt by that very scholarly Abbé Le Lorrain de Vallemont of France whose exhaustive volume was published in 1693 with the title of La Physique Occulte, or "Treatise on the Divining Rod and its Uses for the Discovery of Springs of Water, Metallic Veins, Hidden Treasure, Thieves, and Escaped Murderers." In his preface he politely sneers at those scholars who consider the study of the divining rod as an idle pursuit and shows proper vexation toward the ignorance and prejudice which are hostile to such researches. The author then indicates that the action of the divining rod is to be explained by the theory of Corpuscular Philosophy,[1] and by way of concrete argument, refers to the most famous case in the ancient annals of this art. <hr> <center> <ANTIMG CLASS="imgcenter" SRC="images/img-364.jpg" ALT="Methods of manipulating the diving rod to find buried treasure. (From La Physique Occulte, first edition, 1596.)" BORDER="2" WIDTH="643" HEIGHT="531"> <H4 CLASS="h4center" STYLE="width: 643px"> Methods of manipulating the diving rod to find buried treasure. (From La Physique Occulte, first edition, 1596.) </h4> </center> <hr> "It seems to me that my work would have been incomplete, had I not seen Jacques Aymar, and that the objection might have been raised that I had only argued about statements not generally accepted. This now famous man came to Paris on January 21st, 1693. I saw him two or three hours a day for nearly a month, and my readers may rest assured that during that time I examined him very closely. It is a positive fact that the divining rod turned in his hands in the direction of springs of water, precious metals, thieves, and escaped murderers. He does not know why. If he knew the physical cause, and had sufficient intellect to reason about it, I am convinced that, whenever he undertook an experiment he would succeed. But a peasant who can neither read nor write will know still less about atmosphere, volume, motion of corpuscles distributed in the air, etc. He is still more ignorant as to how these corpuscles can be disturbed and cease to produce the motion and dip of the rod. Neither is he capable of recognizing how essential to success it is for him to know whether he is in a fit condition to be susceptible to the action of the corpuscles which are thrown off from the objects toward which the rod inclines." "I do not deny that there are cheats who profess belief in the rod, and put it to too many uses, just as quacks, with a good remedy for a special ailment, hold themselves up to contempt by wishing to palm it off as a cure-all. To this I add that people will be found who, endowed with greater and more delicate sensibility, will possess still more abundantly than he (Jacques Aymar) the faculty of discovering springs of water, metallic veins, and hidden treasure, as well as thieves and escaped murderers. We have already received tidings from Lyons of a youth of eighteen, who surpasses by a long way Jacques Aymar. And anyone can see in Paris to-day, at the residence of Mons. Geoffrey, late sheriff of that city, a young man who discovers gold buried underground by experiencing violent tremors the moment that he walks over it." M. de Vallemont has no sympathy for those credulous students of natural philosophy who have brought the science into disrepute. They will scoff at the divining rod and yet swallow the grossest frauds without so much as blinking. He proceeds to give an illustration, and it will bear translating because surely it unfolds a unique yarn of buried treasure and has all the charm of novelty. "Upon this subject there is nothing more entertaining than that which took place at the end of the last century, with regard to a boy who journeyed through several towns exhibiting a golden tooth which he declared had grown in the usual way. "In the year 1595, towards Easter, a rumor spread that there was in the village of Weildorst in Silesia, Bohemia, a child seven years of age who had lost all his teeth, and that in the place of the last molar a gold tooth had appeared. No story ever created such a stir. Scholars took it up. In a short time, doctors and philosophers came forward to gain knowledge and to pass judgment, as though it were a case worthy of their consideration. The first to distinguish himself was Jacobus Horstius, Professor of Medicine in the University of Helmstad. This doctor, in a paper which he caused to be printed, demonstrated that this golden tooth was partly a work of nature and partly miraculous; and he declared that in whatever light one viewed it, it was manifestly a consolation sent from above to the Christians of Bohemia, on whom the Turks were then inflicting the worst barbarities. "Martinus Rulandus published simultaneously with Horstius the story of the golden tooth. It is true that two years later Johannes Ingolsteterus refuted the story of Rulandus, but the latter in the same year, 1597, not in the least discouraged, defended his work against the attacks of Ingolsteterus. "Andreas Libavius then entered the lists, and published a book in which he recounted what had been said for and against the golden tooth. This gave rise to great disputes concerning a matter which ultimately proved to be a somewhat clumsy deception. The child was taken to Breslau, where everybody hastened to see so wonderful a novelty. They brought him before a number of doctors, assembled in great perplexity to examine the famous golden tooth. Amongst them was Christophorus Rhumbaumius, a professor of medicine, who was most anxious to see before believing. "First of all, a goldsmith, wishing to satisfy himself that the tooth was of gold, applied to it his touch-stone, and the line left on the stone appeared, to the naked eye, to be in real gold, but on the application of aqua fortis to this line, every trace disappeared, and a part of the swindle was exposed. Christophorus Khumbaumius, an intelligent and skillful man, on examining the tooth more closely, perceived in it a little hole, and, inserting a probe, found that it was simply a sheet of copper probably washed with gold. He could with ease have removed the copper covering had not the trickster, who was taking the child from town to town, opposed it, complaining bitterly of the injury that was being done him by thus depriving him of the chance of taking money from the curious and the credulous. "The swindler and child disappeared, and no one knows to this day exactly what became of them. But because learned men have been duped now and then, that is no reason for perpetual doubt.... and although the story of the golden tooth be false, we should be wrong capriciously to reject that of the hazel rod which has become so famous." Having extinguished the skeptics, as one snuffs a candle, by means of this admirable tale of the golden tooth, the learned author asserts that "it must denote great ignorance of France, and even of books, never to have heard of the divining rod. For I can say with certainty that I have met quite by chance, both in Paris and the provinces, more than fifty persons who have used this simple instrument in order to find water, precious metals and hidden treasure, and in whose hands it has actually turned. 'It is more reasonable,' says Father Malebranche, 'to believe one man who says, I have seen, than a million others who talk at random.' "It is somewhat difficult to determine exactly the period at which the divining rod first came into use. I have discovered no reference to it by writers previous to the middle of the Fifteenth century. It is frequently referred to in the Testament de Basile Valentin, a Benedictine monk who flourished about 1490,[2] and I observe that he speaks of it in a way which might lead one to suppose that the use of this rod was known before that period. "Might we venture to advance the theory that the Divine Rod was known and used nearly two thousand years ago?[3] Are we to count for naught Cicero's illusion to divination by means of the rod, at the end of the first book of his 'De Officiis,' 'If all that we need for our nourishment and clothing comes to us, as people say, by means of some divine rod, then each of us should relinquish public affairs and devote all his time to the study.' "Varro, according to Vetranius Maurus, left a satire called 'Virgula Divina,' which was often quoted by Nonius Marcellus in his book entitled de Proprietate sermonum. But what serves to convince me that Cicero had in his mind the hazel twig, and that it was known at that period, is the passage he quotes from Ennius, in the first half of his 'De Divinatione,' in which the poet, scoffing at those who for a drachma profess to teach the art of discovering hidden treasure, says to them, 'I will give it you with pleasure, but it will be paid out of the treasure found according to your method.'" And so this seventeenth century Frenchman, his manner as wise as a tree-full of owls, drones along from one musty authority to another in defense of the mystic powers of the divining rod. He marshals them in batteries of heavy artillery—names of scholars and alleged scientists who made a great noise in their far-off times when the world was younger and more given to wonderment. The discussions that raged among those Dry-as-dusts have interest to-day because the doctrine of the divining rod is still vigorously alive and its rites are practiced in every civilized country. Call it what you will, a curiously surviving superstition or a natural mystery, the "dowser" with his forked twig of hazel or willow still commands a large following of believers and his services are sought, in hundreds of instances every year, to discover springs of water and hidden treasure. Learned societies have not done with debating the case, and the literature of the phenomenon is in process of making. No one, however, has contributed more formidable ammunition than M. de Vallemont, who could discharge such broadsides as this: "Father Roberti, who writes in the strongest terms against the divining rod, nevertheless admits, in the heat of the conflict, that the indications on which the most scholarly of men set to work to discover mineral soil are all more or less unreliable, and result in endless mistakes. "'What!' says this Jesuit father, 'is it possible that people are willing to attribute greater knowledge and judgment to a rough and lifeless piece of wood than to hundreds of enlightened men? They survey fields, mountains and valleys, devoting scrupulous attention to everything that comes under their notice; not a trace of metal do they discover; and if they happen to suspect that there might be such a thing at a certain spot, they confess that their surmise may be quite unfounded, and that every day they learn to their sorrow, after infinite labor and suspense, that their signs are altogether deceptive. "'Such a one as Goclenius,[4] however, armed with his fork, will wander over the same ground, and led by that instrument, clearer-sighted than the wisest of men, will infallibly come to a standstill over treasures hidden in the earth. Excavations will be made at the spot indicated and the treasures will be laid bare. My dear reader, do you wish me to speak candidly? It is the Devil who is guiding Goclenius.'" In this emphatic statement of the devout French priest of two centuries ago is to be traced the still lingering superstition of an infernal partnership in buried treasure. It is to be found in scores of coastwise legends of pirates' gold (no Kidd story is properly decorated without its guardian demon or menacing ghost), and the divining rod, handed down from an age of witchcraft, necromancy, and black magic, deserves a place in the kit of every well-equipped treasure seeker. Sober, hard-headed Scotchmen from Glasgow employ a Yorkshire "dowser" to search for the treasure lost in the Florencia galleon in Tobermory Bay, and he shows them, and they are convinced, that he can tell whether it be gold, or silver, or copper, which exerts its occult influence over his divining rod.[5] This happens in the year 1906, mind you, but our ardent investigator, M. de Vallemont, was writing two hundred years before: "But, with the divining rod, it is possible to distinguish what metal is contained in the mine towards which the rod inclines. For if a gold coin be placed in each hand, the rod will only turn in the direction of gold, because it becomes impregnated with the corpuscles or minute particles of gold. If silver be treated in the same way, the rod will only dip towards silver. This, at any rate, is what we are told by those who pride themselves on their successful use of the rod." John Stears, the expert diviner, who was recently employed at Tobermory Bay, is more frequently retained to search for water than for lost treasure. This is his vocation and he takes it seriously enough, as his own words indicate:[6] "The power is not in the rod, but in the user, the rod acting as an indicator, and rising when over a stream. By moving the arms as I proceed, I can keep on the edge of an underground stream, for the apex descends when the rod is not over the stream. I have several times followed a line of water down to the shore, being rowed out in the bay, and found the water boiling up mixed with land weeds. At such a spot there is no movement of the rod except over the course of the stream. It is almost impossible to describe the sensation caused whilst using the rod; it is sometimes like a current of electricity going through the arms and legs. On raising one foot from the ground the rod descends. The effect produced when walking is that the rod has the appearance of a fishing rod when the fish is hooked,—the rod seems alive. Move it clear of the line of water and down it goes. "Very few people have the gift of finding water or minerals, and not many rods will do, but those that have thorns on them are all right. In the tropics I used acacia, and in southern Europe the holly or orange. The use of the rod is exhausting. If I have been at it a few hours, the power gradually gets less. A rest and some sandwiches produce fresh power, and I can start again. "I think the friction of the water against the rock underground must cause some electric current, for if the person using the rod stands on a piece of glass, india-rubber, or other insulating material, all power leaves him. "In Cashmere, the rod is used before a well is sunk, and when the French army went to Tonkin, they used the rod for finding drinking water at their camps, as they feared the wells were poisoned." If the divining rod is able to fathom the secrets of underground water channels, it must be as potent in the case of buried treasure. Several years ago, the claims of the modern "dowsers" were investigated by no less an authority than Professor W. F. Barrett, holding the chair of Experimental Physics in the Royal College of Science for Ireland. The results were presented to the Society of Psychical Research and published in two volumes of its proceedings. He said in his introductory pages: "At first sight, few subjects appear to be so unworthy of serious notice and so utterly beneath scientific investigation as that of the divining rod. To most men of science, the reported achievements of the diviner are on a par with the rogueries of Sir Walter Scott's 'Dousterswivel.' That anyone with the smallest scientific training should think it worth his while to devote a considerable amount of time and labor to an enquiry into the alleged evidence on behalf of the 'rod' will appear to my scientific friends about as sensible as if he spent his time investigating fortune-telling or any other relic of superstitious folly. Nor was my own prejudice against the subject any less than that of others. For I confess that it was with great reluctance, and even repugnance, that some six years ago, yielding to the earnest request of the Council of the Society for Psychical Research, I began an investigation of the matter, hoping, however, in my ignorance, that a few weeks work would enable me to relegate it 'to a limbo, large and broad, since called the Paradise of Fools.'" In the summing-up of his exhaustive investigations, Professor Barrett committed himself to these conclusions: "1. That the twisting of the forked twig, or so-called divining rod, is due to involuntary muscular action on the part of the dowser. "2. That this is the result of an ideo-motor action; any idea or suggestion, whether conscious, or sub-conscious, that is associated in the dowser's mind with the twisting of the twig, will cause it to turn apparently spontaneously in his hands. "3. Hence the divining rod has been used in the search for all sorts of things, from criminals to water, its action being precisely similar to the 'pendule explorateur,' i.e., a small suspended ball or ring depending by a thread from the hand. "4. Dismissing, therefore, the mere twisting of the forked rod, the question at issue is, how is the suggestion derived by the dowser that starts this involuntary muscular action? Here the answer is a very complex and difficult one. "5. Careful and critical examination shows that certain dowsers (not all in whose hands the twig turns) have a genuine facility or faculty for finding underground water beyond that possessed by ordinary well-sinkers. "Part of this success is due (1st) to shrewd observation and the conscious and unconscious detection of the surface signs of underground water. (2nd) A residue, say ten per cent or fifteen per cent of their successes cannot be so explained, nor can these be accounted for by chance nor lucky hits, the proportion being larger than the doctrine of probabilities would account for. "This residue no known scientific explanation can account for. Personally, I believe the explanation will be found in some faculty akin to clairvoyance; but as the science of to-day does not recognize such a faculty, I prefer to leave the explanation to future inquirers, and to throw on the skeptic the task of disproving my assertions, and giving his own explanations." This unexplained residue, "akin to clairvoyance," as admitted by a scientist of to-day who wears a top-hat and rides in taxi-cabs, clothes the divining rod in the same alluring mystery which so puzzled those childlike and credulous observers of remote and misty centuries. The Abbé de Vallemont, writing in 1697, found the problem hardly more difficult to explain than does this Professor of Experimental Physics in the Royal College of Science. The wise men of the seventeenth century strove hard to comprehend the "unexplained residue," each after his own fashion. Michael Mayerus, in his book entitled Verum Inventum, hoc est, Munera Germanæ, claimed that the world was indebted to Germany for the invention of gunpowder, and stated that the first wood-charcoal used in its manufacture, mixed with sulphur and saltpeter, was made from the hazel tree. This lead him to refer to the sympathy existing between hazel wood and metals, and to add that for this reason the divining rod was made of this particular wood, which was peculiarly adapted to the discovery of hidden gold and silver. Philip Melanchthon, 1497-1560, famously learned in Natural Philosophy and Theology, discoursed on Sympathy, of which he recognized six degrees in Nature, and in the second of these he named that sympathy or affinity which is found to exist between plants and minerals. He used as an illustration the forked hazel twig employed by those who search after gold, silver, and other precious metals. He attributed the movement of the rod to the metallic juices which nourish the hazel tree in the soil, and he was therefore convinced that its peculiar manifestations were wholly sympathetic and according to natural law. Neuheusius spoke of the divining rod as a marvel from the bounteous hands of Nature, and exhorted men to use it in the search for mineral wealth and concealed treasure. Enchanted with this insignificant-looking instrument, he exclaimed: "What shall I say now concerning the Divine Rod, which is but a simple hazel twig, and yet possesses the power of divination in the discovery of metals, be that power derived from mutual sympathy, from some secret astral influence, or from some still more powerful source. Let us take courage and use this salutary rod, so that, after having withdrawn the metals from the abode of the dead, we may seek in the metals themselves some such faculty for divination as we find in the hazel." Rudolph Glauber, who made many experiments with the rod, had this to say of it: "Metallic veins can also be discovered by means of the hazel rod. It is used for that purpose, and I speak after long experience. Melt the metals under a certain constellation, and make a ball of them pierced through the middle; thrust into the hole thus formed a young sprig of hazel, of the same year, with no branches. Carry this rod straight in front of you over the places where metals are believed to be, and when the rod dips and the ball inclines towards the soil, you may rest assured that metal lies beneath. And as this method is based on natural law, it should undoubtedly be used in preference to any other." Egidius Gustman, supposedly a Rosicrucian friar, and author of a work entitled La Revelation de la Divine Majeste, devoted a chapter to the study of the question "whether hazel rods may be used without sin in the search for metals." He reached the conclusion that there could be nothing unchristian in their employment for the discovery of gold and silver, provided neither words, ceremonies, nor enchantments be called into requisition, and that it be done "in the fear and under the eyes of God." M. de Vallemont quotes as his final authority the Abbé Gallet, Grand Penitentiary of the Church of Carpentras. He considers that the Abbé's high position in the church, and his deep knowledge of physics and mathematics, should lend great weight to his opinion concerning the divining rod. He therefore requests a mutual friend to put to the Abbé this question, "Is not the inclination of the rod due to sleight of hand or something in which the Devil may play a part?" The Abbé returns a long reply in Latin, which de Vallemont is pleased to translate and print in his book. It opens thus: "Monsieur l'Abbé Gallet declares in his own hand that the rod turns in the direction of water and of metals; that he has used it several times with admirable success in order to find water-courses and hidden treasure, and that he is far from agreeing with those who maintain that there is in it any trickery or diabolical influence." William Cookworthy, who flourished in England about 1750, was a famous exponent of the divining rod, and he laid down a most elaborate schedule of directions for its use in finding hidden treasure or veins of gold or silver. In conclusion, he sagely observed:[7] "I would remark that 'tis plain a person may be very easily deceived in making experiments with this instrument, there being, in metallic countries, vast quantities of attracting stones scattered through the earth. The attractions of springs continually occurring; and even about town, bits of iron, pins, etc. may easily be the means of deceiving the unwary. For as quantity makes no alteration in the strength, but only in the wideness of the attraction, a pin under one foot would stop the attraction of any quantity of every other sort, but gold, which might be under the other.... Whoever, therefore, will make experiments need be very cautious in exploring the ground, and be sure not to be too anxious, for which reason I would advise him, in case of debates, not to be too warm and lay wagers on the success, but, unruffled, leave the unbelievers to their infidelity, and permit time and Providence to convince people of the reality of the thing." If one would know how to fashion the divining rod to give most surely the magic results, he has only to consult "The Shepherd's Calendar and Countryman's Companion" in which it is affirmed: "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 night-shade, and cut the single lower end sharp, and where you suppose any rich mine or treasure is near, place a piece of the same metal you conceive is hid in the earth to the tip of one of the forks by a hair or very fine silk or thread, 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 at the increase, and in the morning at sunrise, by a natural sympathy, you will find the metal inclining, as it were, pointing to the place where the other is hid." According to the author of the modern book, "The Divining Rod and its Uses,"[8] "it is curious to note that about one hundred years ago there was considerable excitement in the north of England owing to the remarkable powers possessed by a lady of quality in the district, this being no other than Judith Noel, afterwards Lady Milbank, the mother of Lady Byron. Miss Noel discovered her marvelous faculty when a mere girl, yet so afraid was she of being ridiculed that she would not publicly declare it, thinking she might be called a witch, or that she would not get a husband. Lady Milbank afterwards overcame her prejudice and used the rod on many occasions with considerable success." About 1880, a certain Madame Caillavah of Paris was at the height of her fame as a high-priestess of the divining rod, and her pretensions with respect to finding buried treasure quite set France by the ears. She was besought to discover, among other hoards, the twelve golden effigies taken from the Saint Chapelle during the Revolution and hidden underground for safe-keeping; the treasure of King Stanislaus, buried outside the gates of Nancy; and the vast accumulations of the Petits Pères, or Begging Friars. The French Government took Madame seriously and permitted her to operate by means of an agreement which should insure a proper division of the spoils. There could be no better authority for the singular exploits of Madame Caillavah than the columns of The London Times which stated in the issue of October 6th, 1882: "A certain Madame Caillavah, who in spite of a long experience does not yet bring the credentials of success, is said to be exploring the pavement of St. Denis[9] in search of buried treasures. The French Government likes partnerships, conventions, and co-dominions, and it insists on what almost amounts to the lion's share of the spoil. Nevertheless, a good many people have been found to invest largely in the enterprise, which will cost something if it comes to actual digging. The investigation itself is not in the nature of an excavation, nor is it with the spade or the pickax, unless, indeed, it should turn out that it is a veritable gold mine under St. Denis, when the royal monuments may be thankful if even dynamite be not freely resorted to. "The divining rod is to lead the way.... At the beginning of this century France was one vast field of buried treasure. The silver coin was so bulky that £200 of our money would be a hundredweight to carry, and £1,000 would be a cartload. So it was buried in the hope of a speedy return. The fugitive owners perished or died in exile. Their successors on the spot came upon one hoard after another, and said nothing about it. That they did find the money and put it in circulation, there could be no doubt, for it was impossible to take a handful of silver forty years ago without one or two pieces showing a green rust in place of a white luster. This was the result of long interment, and calculations were made as to the likely total of the exhumation. "But one then heard nothing of the divining rod, not at least in cities, in cathedrals, among the sepulchers of kings, and in the department of State. Our first wish is that the experiment may be quite successful. It would be so very surprising; quite a new sensation, much wanted in these days. But there would be something more than a passing sensation. Even a moderate success would discover to us a means of support and a mode of existence far easier and pleasanter than any yet known. We should only have to walk about, very slowly with the orthodox rod, properly held and handled, keeping our attention duly fixed on the desirableness of a little more money, and we should find it springing up, as it were, from the ground before us.... "The French Minister of Fine Arts need not be deterred,—nay, it is plain he is not deterred,—by the scruples that interrupted the investigations of the great Linné and stopped him on the very threshold of verification. On one of his travels his secretary brought him a divining wand, with an account of its powers. Linné hid a purse containing one hundred ducats under a ranunculus[10] in the garden. He then took a number of witnesses who experimented with the wand all over the ground, but without success. Indeed, they trod the ground so completely that Linné could not find where he had buried the purse. "They then brought in the 'man with the wand' and he immediately pointed out the right direction, and then the very spot where the money lay. Linné's remark was that another experiment would convert him to the wand. But he resolved not to be converted, and therefore did not repeat the experiment. Possibly feeling that it was neither science nor religion, he would have nothing to do with any other conceivable alternative." In The London Times of November 3rd, 1882, there was published under the head of "Foreign Intelligence," the following dispatch which may be regarded as a tragic sequel of the foregoing paragraphs: "The titular Archbishop of Lepanto, who is the head of the Chapter of St. Denis, has addressed a remonstrance to the Government against the renewed divining rod experiments on which Madame Caillavah is insisting under her compact with the State for a division of the spoils. He dwells on the absurdity of the theory that on the Revolutionary seizure of 1793 the Benedictines could have concealed a portion of their treasures, of which printed lists existed and the most valuable of which were notoriously confiscated. "As to the notion of an earlier secretion of treasures, the memory of which had perished, he urges that St. Denis having belonged to the Benedictines from its very erection, no motive for secretion existed and had there been any, the tradition or record of it would have been preserved, while at least four successive reconstructions would certainly have brought any such treasure to light. The mob of 1793, moreover, actually ransacked the vaults, after the removal of the bodies, for the very purpose of discovering such secret hoards. St. Denis, in short, is the very last place in the world for treasure-trove, and as for the central crypt, which the sorceress claims to break into, it was rifled in 1793 when it contained fifty-three bodies which left no vacant space. "The Archbishop need scarcely have troubled himself with this demonstration. Public ridicule has made an end of the project, and even if Madame Caillavah carried out her threat of a lawsuit, no tribunal would hold her entitled to carry on excavations ad libitum, with a risk, perhaps, of herself and her workmen being buried under the ruins of the finest of French cathedrals. In debating the Fine Arts Department estimates, M. Delattre, Deputy for St. Denis, animadverted on the divining rod experiments in the cathedral. M. Tirard replied that the Government had had no share in this ridiculous business. The treaty with the sorceress was concluded in January, 1881, by an official who had since been superannuated, but was not acted upon till she could deposit two hundred francs guarantee, and as soon as he himself heard of the experiments he put a peremptory stop to them. "It is important here to observe that it afterwards transpired that the object of Madame Caillavah's lawsuit was not so much to obtain damages for any breach of contract as to vindicate her private and public character and her professional reputation as a so-called 'diviner' from the odium, scorn, and defamation which the repudiation of the treaty so universally entailed. The sad result of all this was that the unfortunate and sensitive lady was not able to withstand the opprobrium that was heaped upon her, nor 'the ridicule that made an end of her project.' This maligned and misunderstood lady (who, as expressly stated, 'had no doubt brought a good pedigree with her') after a few months of sorrow, and conscious of her rectitude, at length succumbed and, as reported, ultimately died of a 'broken heart.'" [1] "Corpuscular philosophy, that which attempts to account for the phenomena of nature, by the motion, figure, rest, position, etc., of the minute particles of matter."—Webster's Dictionary. [2] Andrew Lang writes in a chapter on the divining rod in Custom and Myth: "The great authority for the modern history of the divining rod is a work published by M. Chevreul in Paris in 1854. M. Chevreul, probably with truth, regarded the wand as much on a par with the turning tables which, in 1854, attracted a good deal of attention.... M. Chevreul could find no earlier book on the twig than the Testament du Frere, Basile Valentin, a holy man who flourished (the twig) about 1413, but whose treatise is possibly apocryphal. According to Basile Valentin, the twig was regarded with awe by ignorant laboring men, which is still true." [3] "And Jacob took him rods of green poplar, and of the hazel and chestnut tree; and pilled white strakes in them, and made the white appear which was in the rods. "And he set the rods which he had pilled before the flocks in the gutters in the watering troughs when the flocks came to drink, that they should conceive when they came to drink." (Genesis xxx, 37-38.) "And the Lord said unto Moses, Go on before the people, and take with thee of the elders of Israel; and thy rod, wherewith thou smotest the river, take in thy hand, and go. "Behold, I will stand before thee there upon the rock in Horeb; and thou shalt smite the rock, and there shall come water out of it, that the people may drink. And Moses did so in the sight of the elders of Israel." (Exodus xvii, 5-6.) [4] Goclenius was a diviner who also professed to make "magnetic cures." [5] See chapter 9, p. 218. [6] Quoted from the volume, Water Divining (London, 1902). [7] The Gentleman's Magazine (London, 1752). [8] By Young and Robertson (London, 1894). [9] For centuries the home of the Benedictine Order. [10] In plain English, flowers of the buttercup family. <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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