In 1659, the Jesuit, Gaspard Schott, tells us that this magic rod was at
this period used in every town in Germany, and that he had frequently
had opportunities of seeing it used in the discovery of hidden treasure.
He further adds:--"I searched with the greatest care into the question
whether the hazel rod had any sympathy with gold and silver, and
whether any natural property set it in motion. In like manner, I tried
whether a ring of metal, held suspended by a thread in the midst of a
tumbler, and which strikes the hours, is moved by any similar force." But
many of the mysterious effects of these so-called divining-rods were no
doubt due to clever imposture. In the year 1790, Plunet, a native of
Dauphiné, claimed a power over the divining-rod which attracted
considerable attention in Italy. But when carefully tested by scientific
men in Padua, his attempts to discover buried metals completely failed;
and at Florence he was detected trying to find out by night what he had
secreted to test his powers on the morrow. The astrologer Lilly made
sundry experiments with the divining-rod, but was not always
successful; and the Jesuit, Kircher, tried the powers of certain rods which
were said to have sympathetic influences for particular metals, but they
never turned on the approach of these. Once more, in the "Shepherd's
Calendar," we find a receipt to make the "Mosaic wand to find hidden
treasure" without the intervention of a human operator:--"Cut a hazel
wand forked at the upper end like a Y. Peel off the rind, and dry it in a
moderate heat, then steep it in the juice of wake-robin or nightshade, and
cut the single lower end sharp; and where you suppose any rich mine or
hidden treasure is near, place a piece of the same metal you conceive is
hid, or in the earth, to the top of one of the forks by a hair, and do the
like to the other end; pitch the sharp single end lightly to the ground at
the going down of the sun, the moon being in the increase, and in the
morning at sunrise, by a natural sympathy, you will find the metal
inclining, as it were pointing, to the places where the other is hid."
According to a Tuscany belief, the almond will discover treasures;
and the golden rod has long had the reputation in England of pointing to
hidden springs of water, as well as to treasures of gold and silver.
Similarly, the spring-wort and primrose--the key-flower--revealed the
hidden recesses in mountains where treasures were concealed, and the
mystic fern-seed, termed "wish-seed," was supposed in the Tyrol to
make known hidden gold; and, according to a Lithuanian form of this
superstition, one who secures treasures by this means will be pursued by
adders, the guardians of the gold. Plants of this kind remind us of the
magic "sesame" which, at the command of Ali Baba, in the story of the
"Forty Thieves," gave him immediate admission to the secret treasure-
cave. Once more, among further plants possessing the same mystic
property may be mentioned the sow-thistle, which, when invoked,
discloses hidden treasures. In Sicily a branch of the pomegranate tree is
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