otherwise he appeared healthy. A severe acute disorder had absolutely at one time deprived him of the faculty of perceiving water, and his sensibility in this respect did not return until three months after his recovery; so that if he were sensitive, he could not be classed among the _sick sensitive_. "But however remarkable these constitutional peculiarities may have been, there was in Bleton's case a more than usual distinctness in the behavior of the divining rod. Unlike many _sourciers_, he did not grasp it closely; he did not warm it in his hands; he did not prefer a young, hard branch, forked, newly plucked and full of sap. His custom was to place horizontally on his forefinger and thumb a rod of any kind of wood (except elder), fresh or dry, not forked, only a little curved or bent. A very straight rod failed to turn on its axis, but a bent rod turned on its axis with more or less rapidity, according to the quantity of the water and the force of the current. Thouvenel counted from thirty-five to eighty revolutions in a minute, and always noted an exact proportion between the rotation of the rod and the convulsive motions of Bleton. If these memoirs be critically examined, it will be found that the author experimented with full care to avoid every source of fallacy. The natural motions of the rod on Bleton's fingers were backward, but as soon as he withdrew from the spring over which he stood, in any direction whatever, the rod, which instantly ceased to turn, was subject to a new law, for at a determinate distance from the spring an action of rotation in a direction contrary to the former one took place. This was invariable, and upon measuring the distance of the spot where this retrograde phenomenon took place, from the spring, the depth could generally be found.