Dowsers

When a pure-hearted scientist meets a phenomenon which he cannot explain, he humbly admits his ignorance, asserts his hope that future Science may be able to explain all things. But many a scientist of high standing and great ability is quick to discredit what he cannot explain.*

Last week some scientists scoffed at, others read with interest, an article in Science concerning divining rods by Dr. Charles Albert Browne of the U. S. Department of Agriculture. Recently returned from a tour of Europe, Dr. Browne stated that "dowsing" (locating underground water by the use of a divining rod or similar unexplained methods) is growing in popularity there.

On a large sugar-beet estate near Magdeburg, Dr. Browne saw one of Germany's most famed dowsers at work. Covering his chest with a padded leather jacket, the dowser took in his hands a looped steel divining rod, began to pace the ground. Suddenly the loop shot upward, hit him a hard blow on the chest. Continuing, he charted the outlines of the underground stream. Then using an aluminum rod, which he said was much more sensitive, he estimated the depth of the stream. A rod of still another metal indicated by a chest blow that the water was good for drinking. When Dr. Browne tried to use the rod himself, he could get no chest blows unless the dowser was holding one end.

The German dowser told Dr. Browne that powerful rays come from the earth's centre, are absorbed by water, metals, oil. He thinks that his own nervous system, made peculiarly sensitive by an attack of tropical fever, reacts with violent muscular contractions to the absence of these rays.

Dr. Browne then questioned German scientists. The majority answered that, with all humbuggery discounted, a large number of successes remained which could not be accounted for by luck or chance. Some favored the explanation of the late Sir William F. Barrett, British physicist, that dowsers have a subconscious power something like the unexplained homing instinct of birds. Others were inclined to believe the theory of Professor John Walter Gregory of University of Glasgow that dowsers learn to recognize certain topographical formations which accompany underground water. A famed British dowser, who had the ability as a child, is the Hon. David Bowes-Lyon, brother of the Duchess of York.

Oscar Edward Meinzer of the U. S. Geological Survey, who recently conducted a survey of water-finders, does not agree with German scientists. He concluded that "further tests ... of so-called 'witching' for water, oil, or other minerals would be a misuse of public funds."

Last week despatches from Rome told of another use for the divining rod. Maria Mataloni of Lepringnano startled savants several months ago by finding a Roman tomb with her divining rod near Capena, ruined ancient Etruscan town. Last week she was taken to Pompeii by Professor Amedeo Maiuri of Naples Museum, located several places in the buried city where, she said, were hidden gold, silver, bronze.

* Last week in Manhattan a group of writers (Theodore Dreiser, Harry Elmer Barnes, Ben Hecht, Booth Tarkington, Edgar Lee Masters, John Cowper Powys, Tiffany Thayer, Harry Leon Wilson), formed a Fortean Society to create wider interest in the work of Charles Fort, author of The Book of the Damned, New Lands (out of print), Lo! (Claude Kendall, Publisher). For 26 years Author Fort has collected phenomena which Science has been unable to explain. He & his friends believe that modern knowledge must be freed of the prejudices of Science.

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