Letters on the truths contained in popular superstitions / By Herbert Mayo, M. D.

  • Herbert Mayo
Date:
1849
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Letters on the truths contained in popular superstitions / By Herbert Mayo, M. D. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    2S SG tyetee the chateau de Ranac. The surface of ground, which gave the desired results, was from seventy to eighty feet in breadth. But there was another spot equally efficient at the Counts ordinary residence at Emerillon, near Clery, four leagues south of Orleans, ten leagues south of the Loire, at the commencement of the plains of Sologne. The surface ran from north to south, and had the same breadth with the other. These “exciting tracts” form in general bands or zones of undetermined and often very great length. Their breadth is very variable. Some are only three or four feet across, while others are one hun- dred paces. These tracts are sometimes sinuous, in other instances they ramify. To the most susceptible they are broader than to those who are less so. M. de Tristan thus describes what happens wien a competent person, armed with a hazel-fork walks over the exciting districts. When two or three steps have been made upon the exciting tract of ground, the fork, which at starting is held horizontally, with the point forwards, begins gently to ascend; it gradually attains a vertical position; some- times it passes beyond that, and lowering itself, with its point to the chest of the operator, it becomes again hori- zontal. If the motion continues, the rod descending becomes vertical with the point downwards. Finally the rod may again ascend and resume its first position. When the action is very lively, the rod immediately commences a second revolution, and so it goes on, as long as the operator continues to walk over the exciting surface of ground. A few of those, in whose hands the divining fork _ moves, exhibit a remarkable peculiarity. The instrument instead of commencing its motion by ascending, descends ; the point then becomes directed vertically downwards ; afterwards it reascends, and completes a revolution in a
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