Curiosities for the ingenious : selected from the most authentic treasures of nature, science and art, biography, history and general literature.

Date:
1822
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Curiosities for the ingenious : selected from the most authentic treasures of nature, science and art, biography, history and general literature. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    towards the gold, i. e. towards the face; whicli proves that the gold possesses the stronger attraction : and, by thus varying all the forementioned substances, the strength of their respective attractions will be found to correspond with the order in which they are placed. According to Captain Rebeira, the virtue necessarily re- sident in the human body for the discovery of metals, &c. in the earth by means of the divining rod, is confined to but few persons; and Agricola very shrewdly insinuates, that where it does aot act, it must be owing to some singular occult quality in the person. Cookworthy and Pryce, how- ever, affect that Rebeira was mistaken; for that the virtue, as he calls it, resides in all rods and in all persons, though not in every rod in the hands of every person. Willow and other rods, say they, will not be attracted in the way which fruit-bearing rods are attracted, but will answer in hands in which the fruit-bearing rods are ?2o< attracted; so that all persons possess the virtue. If a piece of the same wood as that of which the rod is composed, be placed under the arm, it will totally destroy the- operation of it, except in the instance of water, for which any rod, they say, in any hand will answer ; or if the least animal thread, as silk, or worsted, or hair, be placed on the top of the rod, it will prevent its operation : but if a piece of the same animal substance, or of the same wood as that of which the rod is made, provided the rod does not answer, be placed under the arm, it ^vill cause the rod to operate. If a piece of gold be held in the hand and touching the rod, it will prevent its being attracted by that metal or by copper, for the rod will be repelled towards the face ; or if iron, le.id, tin, silver, limestone, bone, or coal, be held in like manner, it will also be repelled, and tiice versa. ] f a person with whom the roddoesnot naturally operate, hold apiece of gold in his hand, the rod then answers to gold and copper; and thus with respect to the other metals and substances; and upon these properties of the rod depends its power of distin- guishing one metal or substance from another. Another mode however, grounded upon the same principles, is pointed out as being much more readv and certain, viz. by preparing rods that will only answer to some one of the o 2