ho was known as an expert in the art
of using the divining rod, immediately set out to locate the gold.
Lo, and behold, the moment he set foot on the spot described by the
old woman, the branch turns downward, and from its movements the man
gathers that twelve feet below ground there lies buried some copper,
silver and gold. He calls a peasant to dig a pit eleven feet deep,
then he sends him away so that no other should get into the secret.
He himself digs a foot deeper, but all in vain, for he finds
nothing. Standing in the pit, he again takes up the branch. Again it
moves, but this time it points upward, as if to indicate that the
treasure had disappeared from the earth. Dismayed, he climbs out of
the pit and questions the branch a third time. This time it points
downward once more. He climbs back into the pit. Presently he feels
the prick of conscience (for in the 17th century many regarded the
dipping of the divining rod as the work of the Devil). Terrified, he
exclaims: "O God, if the thing I am doing here is wrong, then I
renounce the Evil One and his rod (s'il y a du mal, je renonce au
demon et a la baguette)". Having spoken, he once more takes the rod
in hand to test it. It does not move. Horrified, for now there was
no longer any doubt that Satan was the cause of its movements, the
man makes the sign of the cross and runs away. But he had hardly
gone more than two or three hundred paces when the thought strikes
him: Is it really true that the branch will no longer move for him?
He throws a coin to the ground, cuts a branch from a bush nearby,
and is overjoyed when he notes how it dips down toward the money.

Another example is to be found in a report of the well-known
physicist, Ritter[27], of Munich, which appeared during the early
part of the 19th century. Ritter, a man with a bent for natural
philosophy and metaphysics, describes an instrument which was to
replace the divining rod, and which he called "balancier." It was
simple enough, consisting of a metal strip that was balanced
horizontally upon a pivot, and was supposed to be put into motion in
the presence of metals. Ritter used this instrument in his numerous
experiments with the Italian Campetti, a man who had achieved a
measure of fame in Europe for his ability to discover springs and
metals by the use of the divi