WATER DIVINING

Otago Daily Times, Issue 21990, 27 June 1933, Page 8

WATER DIVINING

TO THE EDITOR.

Sir,—rlt is to he hoped that others will come forward as " Fair Play" has done and show that there is sound evidence % in favour of " divining," so-called, in spite of allegations by influential persona to the contrary. Unfortunately, diviners have on occasion been in error, btit so also have geologists nnd others. Water diviners have gone _ wrong mainly because they lack a sufficient understanding of the physical principles involved. Take the case of a man who claims to be a water diviner purely and simply. He has had a- number of successes to which he can point and upon which his reputation has become established. On an important occasion he is asked to find water. He goes out and indicates a spot. To check up on diviner No. 1 the interested party procures a sc«ond water diyiner to go over the ground. Their findings being identical, a shaft or a tube well is sunk exactly to instructions; but the water is not there. Both were honest men, each got the same result, but, no water. Something was wrong; from what did they get the indication ? As they were purely. water diviners, minerals were beyond their ken; and both had encountered mineral radiation without being aware of-the fact, and both wrongly attributed the indication to water. It is exceedingly probable that the failures quoted at Mangamaire and at Mangatainoka were due to this very cause. ■ • •'.

The problem of accurately finding water at Arapuni, notwithstanding that the machines were actually shut down, would be seriously complicated by the . proximity of the 110,000 volt live line, together with large masses of metal in the power house and penstocks. Since it can be shown that even a low voltage service line can cause much distortion of the radiation '. from underground sources—which radiation it is that causes the movements' of the diviner's rod—it can readily be appreciated that a high voltage transmission line, if alive when the tests were being made, would make accurate findings im-

practicable; and a-diviner unaware of this source of interference would be hopelessly astray.: Diviners wjll have to be more than water diviners if they are to be divinert at all; and, while granting that there ar« those who have need to equip themselvet with a fuller knowledge of the underlying principles of their art, we claim at tha same time that it is unfair for persona without adequate examination of those principles to condemn divining merely on the strength of one or two failures which had come under their notice. Should Dr Marshall, or any members, of his staff interested in divining, come to Otago, the writer would assure them that they could be given a demonstration that would more than excite their curiosity.—l am, etc., Lux