WATER-DIVINING AT SUVLA BAY.
[To THE EDITOR OF THE " SPRCTATOR.."1
SIR,—Recently I received a newspaper from Egypt, sent me with quite other intention, but in looking it through I came across the account I send you of water-divining in Suvia Bay. I had seen no mention of it in any English paper, and think it may be of interest to your readers.
—I am, Sir, &c., E. L. BUTCHER. The Rest House, Sidmouth, Devon.
" In reference to the employment of wator.diviners with our forces on the Egyptian frontier, it is noteworthy that one of the most extra- ordinary incidents of the Gallipoli campaign was the discovery of water by the aid of a water-diviner at Suvla Bay during the critical hours which followed the landing there in August, 1915. Sapper Stephen Kelley, of the 3rd Australian Light Horse Brigade, a hydraulic engineer of Melbourne, had proved he possessed the gift for water-divining in his business operations. He first spoke about finding water at Suvia to Captain Shearon, a Now Zealand officer with whom he was standing in the line of communications. Every one was talking of the great problem of the water supply in the August heat on that parched land. He said to Captain Shearen There'a water here where we re standing.' The experts, he said, had examined and reported that there was no water to be got there. News of the sapper's reputation reached Brigadier- General Hughes, who sent for him on August 15th, and asked him if ho could find water. The Brigadier put a thousand men under his direc- tion, and by half-past two he had opened up one well which had been sunk, and from giving four hundred gallons its output was sixteen thousand. In a little time ho had thirty wells going, with sufficient water to supply every man with a gallon a day and every mule with its six gallons, and this of pure cold spring water instead of the lukewarm liquor from kerosene tins off the transport.
Naturally the army's engineers were astonished, and oven hurt, by Sapper Kelley's HUMOR, especially as he was without paper plans. When they asked him about it, he said that it would take him about half the time to got the wells going that it would for him to draw up the plans. General Hughes, he says, was the only commander who gave him a sporting chance. The excitement of his job staved off a breakdown till his wort at Suvla Bay was finished ; then he collapsed. He afterwards described with some emotion how, as he was carried down to the hospital ship, the boys (sheered him to the echo. Tho water-diviner is a Kent man, born in Maidstone. He went out to Queensland when a small boy. He says that when a boy in Queensland there arrived in their neighbour. hood an old man, a water-diviner, who tried his art in their township. The boy trotted after the old man in his twistings and turnings about the paddock with a divining twig in his hand, and when the old man found water the boy felt his nerves twitch and a thrill go through him that wasn't just excitement. He thought he'd try, too, and did. From that moment he had practised his powers. He states that at Suvla he got better results with a copper rod. The only rod handy was made from the band of a shell, but he says he used the copper only for accurate determination."—Egyptian Gazette, July 21st, 1916.
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