"It must, however, be admitted that the action of these metals presenting only the differences of greater or less in degree, either in the nervous and muscular impressions of the body or in the circular revolutions of the rods constantly moved from before backward, these differences do not yield a certain means of distinguishing the five metals one from the other. The object Thouvenel had in view was nevertheless fulfilled, for he had established the extent and the determination of a sphere of electric activity towards the west in certain metals and on sulphur which does not exist in the same manner, on iron, on coal, or on streams of water. "To give a summary then of the relations of these phenomena to those established by Professor Faraday, it may be said that over iron mines, the divining rod assumes a movement of rotation diametrically opposite to that which it exhibits over all other mines. When iron and other metals are extracted from their ores and deposited under ground, the phenomenon occurs with the same distinction, that is to say, with the iron it rotates towards the north. With all other metals submitted to trial, its action is from east to west. The influence of the red metals seems to be more energetic than that of the white. But with regard to this divining rod, let one condition be remarked--the relation of the organic substance to another organic and living power of matter, to a human being in a certain susceptible state of nervous system. Thouvenel describes the symptoms which affected Bleton when he was in the sphere of metallic action, and the rod becomes the secondary part of a philosophical instrument composed of an impressionable human being and a piece of stick.