[_From Notes and Queries._] DIVINING ROD.--Divination by the rod or wand is mentioned in the prophecy of Ezekiel. Hosea, too, reproaches the Jews as being infected with the like superstition: "My people ask counsel at their stocks and their _staff_ declareth unto them." Chap. iv, 12. Not only the Chaldeans used rods for divination, but almost every nation which has pretended to that science, has practiced the same method. Herodotus mentions it as a custom of the Alani, and Tacitus of the old Germans. See Cambridge's "Scribleriad," book V, note on line 21. In the manuscript "Discourse on Witchcraft," 1705, written by Mr. John Bell, page 41, I find the following account from Theophylact on the subject of _rabdomanteia_ or rod-divination: "They set up two staffs, and, having whispered some verses and incantations, the staffs fell by the operation of dæmons. Then they considered which way each of them fell--forward or backward, to the right or left hand--and agreeably gave responses, having made use of the fall of their staffs for their signs." Dr. Henry, in his "History of Great Britain," tells us (II, 550), that after the Anglo-Saxons and Danes embraced the Christian religion, the clergy were commanded by the canons to preach very frequently against _diviners_, sorcerers, auguries, omens, charms, incantations, and all the filth of the wicked and dotages of the Gentiles." The following is from "Epigrams, etc.," published London, 1651--_Virgula Divina_: "Some sorcerers do boast they have a rod, Gathered with vowes and sacrifice, And (borne about) will strangely nod To hidden treasure where it lies; Mankind is (sure) that rod divine, For to the wealthiest (ever) they incline." The earliest use made of the divining rod by the miners was for the discovery of the _lode_. So late as three years ago (1850), the process has been tried. The method of procedure was to cut the twig of an hazel or apple-tree of twelve months' growth, into a forked shape, and to hold this by both hands in a peculiar way, walking across the land until the twig bent, which was taken as an indication of the locality of the lode. The person who generally practises this divination boasts himself to be the seventh son of a seventh son. The twig of hazel bends in his hands to the conviction of the miners that ore is present; but then the peculiar manner in which the twig is held, bringing muscular action to bear upon it, accounts for its gradual deflection, and the circumstance of the strata walked over always containing ore gives a further credit to the process of divination. The vulgar notion still prevalent in the north of England of the hazel's tendency to a vein of lead ore, seam or stratum of coal, etc., seems to be a vestige of this rod divination.