The morning call. [volume] (San Francisco [Calif.]) 1878-1895, 1894-06-17

only in the finding of mines and ore
:bGdles that the man with the gift" gets
lin his work, still he makes a very good
:. thing Of II. People laugh at his forked
stick and say it Is all humbug, yet there
are always plenty of men ready to set the
ma an Of the magic rod TO work, lust for
. THE. fun OF i" as they say. The fact is
: they are curious to know what the pos
:.sess0r of the mysterious power of the
rod" Will say about certain veins of
=: quartz or pieces OF ground in the mineral
belt.
: a gaping crowd is always sure to follow
the man with the "dowsing-rod." Men
*maQ laugh at bis announcements, yet
j. much of what he says "sticks"-fnds
Judgment in the mind of some one
=. The general term for diYination by rod
" OF wand Is .'rha6domancy," which is in-
:tendtd to cover all the uses of the instru-
{ ment. "MetaliGscopy" is the special term
used to designate the art of finding metals
by the use OF the divining-rOd, and those
who use il for the purpose of discovering
water call themselves "hydroscopists."
Among the masses, however, these gentry
are not hOnored with any such hgh-sound-
ing titles In Cornwall they are called
'dowsers," and the instrument they use Is
known as "dowsing-rOd." In the Pacific
Coast regions those who use the diyining-
rod are spoken Of as "forked-stick men, ="
and the rod itself is called 1.-THE little
..:1okeT." The rod is just IS good for oil as
IL Is Tor water and metals, and in Pennsyl-
vania the diviner is known IS an "oiI-
:smeiler" The first oil well had no more
.than begun tO.flow before the divining-rod
men were prancing about the oil fields
. with their fOrked sticks. All the "water
witches" or "water-smellers" at once be-
.came 'oil-smellers." 1t was suddenly dis
covered that the rod was as good for find.
ing oil as for discovering water. 1t was
.Jike the fellows wonderful hunting horse.
u cd TO 6,b
bite"
> In the early days of the Comstock old All
: Peck was the great "dowseT" man, Old
. Al was little. dried-up. illiterate man in
whose small restless eyes was always to
be seen cunning twinkle when be took 70
the field ''dowser" in hand The rod he
: used was provided with a pair of whale
bone handles, which proceeded out Of an
.Seg-shaped bulb covered with buckskin.
INSIDE OF the bulb was supposed to be
some klnd Of receptacle containing a GER
LAIN com oination Of metals and chemicals.
Inc ola man said he did not himself know
what the bulb contained. that he was not
allowed TO examine il. He claimed that
were he TO open the bulb and examine it's
contents his 'gift' Of the power of the
rod" would be taken from him.
va Al was on the Comstock as early as
1860 l first saw him 10 that year among
the hills between Silver City and Ameri-
can Flat. He had trailing out behind him
twenty or thirty men who had followed
him from Virginia City. Among these
were half dozen San Francisco capital
lists. Old Al was in clover. aud seemed IN
have placed all his followers under some
sort OF spell akin 10 that which the ''Ped
Piper" put upon the children of Hamelin
when he led them away to perish on
Koppelberg Hill In the eyes of every
man trailing after old Al was to be seen
the greed of gold. All eyes were upon the
n ma h., had .lrr.e
bnlb OF his f0rked stick on a level with his
nose, When the rod began to move all
drew near and stood watching, open
mouthed and almost breathless
.; At.times OLD All and his stick had some
terrlhc struggles. He would be trying to