“I have at last hearkened to thy advice, and begun to commit to black and white what I know in chemistry--I mean so far as I have not been obliged to other folks. Having finished my observations on furnaces, I intend to continue it as I have leisure, as it may be of use after my death. “Farewell, dear Richard, and if I am to have an answer, let it be by next post, or it will not come to hand before my leaving home. “Thine affectionately, “W. C. “Maunds[88] are excessively dear, and I have none worse than what is sent that is fit for use.” The letter is addressed “For Richard Hingston, Surgeon, in Penryn,” and is followed by an invoice of goods sent by “Bevans and Cookworthy.” At this time the business was still carried on under the style of “Bevans and Cookworthy.” The death of his wife, which took place within a few months of the writing of this letter, entirely took away his attention from business, and his researches into china clays were thrown aside. He retired into seclusion at Looe, in Cornwall, where he remained for several months, and, on his return to business, took his brother Philip, who, it appears, had lately returned from abroad, into partnership, and carried it on, with him under the style of “William Cookworthy & Co.” This arrangement enabled Cookworthy to devote his time to the scientific part of the business, and to the prosecution of his researches, while his brother took the commercial management of the concern. Left thus more to the bent of his scientific inclinations, he pursued his inquiries relative to the manufacture of porcelain, and lost no opportunity of searching into and experimenting upon the properties of the different natural productions of Cornwall; and it is related of him that, in his journeys into that county, he has passed many nights sitting up with the managers of mines, obtaining information on matters connected with mines and their products. In the course of these visits he first became acquainted with the supposed wonderful properties of the “Divining Rod,” or “Dowsing Rod,” as it was called by the Cornish miners, in the discovery of ore of various kinds.