WATER DIVINING [To the Editor of the SPECTATOR.]
have been most interested in reading Mr. Fleming's article on water divining. I wonder if your readers would be interested in our experiences with water finders down here in Devon. About two years ago my old friend the Dean of Westminster walked about with a hazel forked twig looking for water along our drive and in our kitchen garden. He found it in at least three places where the twig behaved in an amazing fashion. About a month ago I was approached by the Head-Master of Charterhouse, who expressed a desire to buy the kitchen garden as a site for a house, but he said the purchase would depend on " finding water." ' I persuaded a friend of ours, Colonel Worthington Wilmer, D.S.O., who was credited with the marvellous power, and he found his twig behaving in exactly the same manner as the Dean's in the same places.
But naturally the Head-Master required expert evidence, and he employed Mr. Shepherd, the water engineer from Exeter. Mr. Shepherd came along with his " diviner," a Mr. Bevis (a postman in ordinary life), in whom he said he had absolutely implicit faith. Mr. Bevis is a tall spare man with a rather ascetic cast of countenance. It was simply amazing to watch him. He walked along with his hands clenched together behind his back, sometimes holding a stick, sometimes not. All of a sudden at certain spots his hands began to twitch convulsively. He would then stop and stretch out his hands in front of him as if conferring a blessing. Then he would walk on a step or two and suddenly would almost fall forwards and then backwards, as if he had received an electric shock. He distinctly found evidences of water where both the Dean and the Colonel had found them, but he got his chief shock in a place where they had never tried. Here he almost fell to the ground, and then said : " Here you will find water, a stream of about seven feet in width at a depth of about 60 feet."
Mr. Shepherd says that Mr. Bevis has never failed him—a belief confirmed by the two borers who arrived two days afterwards. These men fixed up their boring machine, and day after day we went and watched them until at last, after about a fortnight's work of boring through mostly hard rock, they came across the promised stream at 62 feet on Wednesday night. We are now pumping easily 600 gallons an hour.
Mr. Bevis has the power of locating metals also. Our chauffeur stood up before him and rather sceptically asked him if he could find any metal on him. Mr. Bevis' hands wavered over him and suddenly pointed to the boy's left hand watch-pocket, from which he amazedly drew a gold ring ! Cannot this marvellous power be used in other ways ?
—I am, Sir, &c., CYRIL MAUDE. Redlap, Dartmouth, S. Devon.
P.S.—I have given the names of the parties concerned to prove the authenticity of my story.—C. M.
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