Water Supply and Divination

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXVII, Issue 20208, 29 March 1940, Page 7

Water Supply and Divination

Sir, —In a recent issue of your paper there is a report of an address given by Mr. S. A. Weymouth, a geologist, to the Gisborne Rotary Club. He deals with the question of water supply for Gisborne and the impossibility of securing artesian (lows. It is known to the oldest residents that most of our artesian Hows, and there are quite a few, are permeated wi'th gas, but the natural underground flows or pumping wells are producing good, wholesome drinking water. The Gisborne flats are surrounded by high country which is the source of these wonderful supplies of nature’s filtered water. A geologist, when speaking about the flows of water in the Waimala district, some 1200 ft. above sea level, said lie ventured to say it was coming from Waikaremoana requiring the pressure to reach there. As Mr. Weymouth has only recently come to this district, he may not have visited the upper reaches of the Waipaoa River, particularly Arowhana mountain. It is quite apparent that Gisborne gets much of its underground supplies from that source.

The Waipaoa River, now under discussion, in a dry season may almost cease to flow, yet most of our divined underground flows show but little variation. The Waipaoa River, flowing as it does through a very closelypopulated farming district, acts as ' a drain for all purposes to some 60,000 odd acres of land, where all classes of farming is carried on. It would be a great pleasure to take Mr. Weymouth over some of these undoubted underground supplies, beginning at the Waipaoa freezing works site, where from two bores 40,000 gallons of water per hour was lifted. Five of these bores could be put down on this wide line. The Borough Council tested one bore and verified this. The analysis showed pure water but containing too much lime. Mr. Jones, engineer for the freezing works, said he used the water through the most delicate tubes in the works for some years, and there was scarcely any scale from its use, and that the water from the present borough supply is ■ harder. What is wrong in boring and testing this supply to its full capacity?

I should like to point out to Mr. Weymouth the scientists’ opinion on divination of water, which he says some geologists do not agree with. Dr. Linlott and co-workers of Guy’s Hospital physiological laboratory have made a very searching examination of water divining, with stringent tests carried out both in the laboratory and the field. These tests were done under a strong spirit of scepticism and under critical observation. The results arc published in Guy’s Hospital Gazette, and the conclusions were that the rod acts as an indicator, and also as a means of detecting running water. A stimulus emanates from running water. The whole subject is akin to the reception of wireless waves, and a description of the physiological apparatus in the human body. The Italian Ministry of Agriculture, in its first congress of professors and water diviners, at which 200 Italian and French university professors were present, reached the conclusion put forward by Dr. Casu, of Verona, that any substance capable of radiating electric magnetic energy produced a muscular contraction made visible by the movement of the rod. Mr. Howard Carter, the discoverer of Tutankhamen’s tomb, found early Egyptian writing on the divining of water. J. C. FIELD.