vy artillery--names of scholars and alleged scientists
who made a great noise in their far-off times when the world was
younger and more given to wonderment. The discussions that raged among
those Dry-as-dusts have interest to-day because the doctrine of the
divining rod is still vigorously alive and its rites are practiced in
every civilized country. Call it what you will, a curiously surviving
superstition or a natural mystery, the "dowser" with his forked twig of
hazel or willow still commands a large following of believers and his
services are sought, in hundreds of instances every year, to discover
springs of water and hidden treasure. Learned societies have not done
with debating the case, and the literature of the phenomenon is in
process of making. No one, however, has contributed more formidable
ammunition than M. de Vallemont, who could discharge such broadsides as
this:

"Father Roberti, who writes in the strongest terms against the divining
rod, nevertheless admits, in the heat of the conflict, that the
indications on which the most scholarly of men set to work to discover
mineral soil are all more or less unreliable, and result in endless
mistakes.

"'What!' says this Jesuit father, 'is it possible that people are
willing to attribute greater knowledge and judgment to a rough and
lifeless piece of wood than to hundreds of enlightened men? They
survey fields, mountains and valleys, devoting scrupulous attention to
everything that comes under their notice; not a trace of metal do they
discover; and if they happen to suspect that there might be such a
thing at a certain spot, they confess that their surmise may be quite
unfounded, and that every day they learn to their sorrow, after
infinite labor and suspense, that their signs are altogether deceptive.

"'Such a one as Goclenius,[4] however, armed with his fork, will wander
over the same ground, and led by that instrument, clearer-sighted than
the wisest of men, will infallibly come to a standstill over treasures
hidden in the earth. Excavations will be made at the spot indicated
and the treasures will be laid bare. _My dear reader, do you wish me
to speak candidly? It is the Devil who is guiding Goclenius_.'"

In this emphatic statement of the devout French priest of two centuries
ago is to be traced the still lingering superstition of an infernal
partnership in buried treasure. It is to be found in scores of
coastwise legends of pirates' gold (