b"Divination: A geophysicist's viewFeaturebut rejected the bona fides of the actual movement using the analogy of the magnet which does not turn iron, rather draws the iron directly to itselfso the twig should move itself only once in a semicircle directly towards the vein. Clearly, the gyration was part of the show, along with the verbals. Agricola regarded divining as a relic of heretical wizardry embraced by unsophisticated commoners. He regarded dowsers as cunning manipulators whose occasional success was due to chance. He believed the good and serious miner / prospector should have nothing to do with divining. I think Agricolas criticism of divining, four and a half centuries ago, is telling, and still quite relevant.As is evident in Figure 7, there were numerous veins in the Freiberg system. There would have been a lot of local lore about them: known strikes, long strike lengths, many intersections with enrichment zones, and frequent cross-strike outcrop or sub-outcrop occurrence. Hardly the random plum target buried in a big pudding. A shrewd observer would have been aware of this and would have tried to use it to advantage. But to no avail. Conventional prospecting revealed the Freiberg mineralisation, not divination. Costeaning, pitting, trenching is very hard work. If there was a reliable method of finding ore, it would have been eagerly adopted. Dowsing is a lot easier, but it was not found to be useful in finding shallow ores.thFigure 8.Surface prospecting in 16C Saxony-Bohemia showing supervisors, workmen in pits and costeans, and dowsers. From De Re Metallica Book 2, 1556Mining was a serious business in Agricolas time. He lived in the edition. reign of the Saxon Elector Augustus 1 (1526-1586) and in his preface to De Re Metallica he declared himself a dear and faithful prospectors seem to have discovered interesting ore in theirsubject of the exalted ruler. Augustus believed in economic surface pit, towards which one diviners twig points, after thedevelopment and surveyed his lands for mineral deposits. Silver discovery. The ragged stump of a dead tree is nearby, perhapswas especially sought after as it was virtually a form of currency, its roots were poisoned by the mineralisation below. Behindserving as an essential financial instrument in the exercise of them, another two prospectors continue with their costean.Augustus power. Mining improvements were encouraged, In the top right a prospector hacks into an outcrop in front ofand miners held in high esteem; princes sometimes attended a blazing tree, set alight to get rid of it. In the left backgroundfeasts dressed in miners garb. If dowsers with divining rods a dowser wanders, twig erect, ready for a response. In thehad facilitated the discovery of silver and the establishment of centre background another dowser is cutting a branch from amines there would have been a record of any discoveries and dead tree, and behind him are other dead trees. Eight stumpsof Augustus enthusiasm for the technique. There is no such complete the scene of a site cleared for prospecting (even indocumentation because, as Agricola indicated, it did not work.the 16th century, forest clearance for mining was a contentious environmental issue, which Agricola acknowledged). ThereSeventeenth century opinionare four other abandoned prospecting pits, or gouges, with extracted rubble left on the surface. In the lower left aThe 17th century saw the flowering of very able scientific prosperous looking gent, replete with hat and walking stick,intellects in many fields as the influence of the pseudoscience and gloves laid on a nearby tree stump, points to the workmenof astrology waned. In England, William Harvey published in the second pit. He could be an entrepreneur, the owner of thehis treatise on the circulation of the blood in 1628. The Royal site, hoping for more productivity. The other hatted fellow couldSociety was established in London by 1660. The renowned be the overseer. In the lower right next to the miners kit a swordSir Isaac Newton developed the differential calculus and in a scabbard rests against a treepossibly a symbol of thegravitational theory in the 1665-1684 period.political and religious turmoil during the Lutheran ReformationThe impressive Irish physicist and chemist Robert Boyle (1627-in Europe. Agricola was a staunch Catholic living in a Protestant1691) established modern chemistry with his Sceptical Chemist area but was respected by all for his professional work (medicalin which he defined the chemical element as the ultimate limit and mineral), decency, and integrity. of chemical analysis. He also researched specific gravity and According to Agricola, dowsers claimed that only they had(Boyles Law) showed that the pressure and volume of a gas are the correct twig-skill (right size, right material, correct clench)inversely proportional. An indefatigable character, he had the and as true dowsers, devoid of impeding peculiarities, theyNew Testament translated at his own expense, and circulated, were assured of success in getting the twig to respond to thein Arabic, to Muslim countries of the East; its reception can mineralisation vein power as they wandered around, mutteringbe imagined. He was very curious about divining and was no incantations. Presumably vein-power was believed to be a typefool. He observed metal dowsers at work in the Somerset lead of paranormal emanation to which a cognitively gifted dowserregion in England where mineralisation occurred. He accepted was attuned, using a forked twig or similar accoutrement suchthe movement of the rod but was puzzled by its cause. He was as a metal rod as a focus. not convinced that it really worked as advertised. Presumably, he did not endorse the belief of tin miners (to the southwest Veins were alleged to induce a gyrating twisting motion inin Cornwall) that fairy power turned the rod i.e. pixies, the the forked twig. Agricola did not doubt that the twig moved,guardians of mineral treasure, guided the rod to ore. It was a DECEMBER 2020 PREVIEW 52"