In the seventeenth century the dousing-twig was used as a guide in all sorts of quests, for instance, in searching for hidden treasure and in tracking criminals! In our own times it is chiefly known through its use by professional water-finders. There is no doubt that some of these gentry are dishonest. They are not the credulous rustics to whom the dousing-twig owes its long popularity. They are often clever and expert judges of the indications by form of the land, lie of geological strata, and distribution of vegetation, as to the subterranean water which is so abundant in this country. They make a pretence of using the douser's twig, in order to obtain employment from landowners in search of a likely spot for sinking a well, since it is the fact that many people prefer to be guided by a sort of magician who uses a supposed mysterious occult agency rather than to employ the honest and perhaps less acute geologist who avowedly proceeds in his search for water by making use of ascertained facts as to the structure and character of the subsoil and deeper strata of the district in which his services are called for. The believers in the connexion of the movement of the douser's rod and the existence of concealed metal or water, have of late years started the theory that the twig itself is of no value in the "experiment." Certain dousers have declared that they can work just as well without it, and that it is not the rod or twig but they themselves who are sensitive to concealed water or metal. They state that they feel a peculiar "sinking" in the pit of the stomach, also a nervous tremor, and that their hands move spasmodically, causing the rod to move, and they attribute this to an influence on the human body of "vibrations" or possibly "electricity" from the concealed metal or water. This is ingenious enough; it shifts the seat of mysterious action from the simple twig to the much more complex human body, and accepts to a certain extent what I have above stated as to the nervous condition of the douser and the fatigue of the hands.