Hmmm. If I was surprised by the anti-science undercurrent re: dowsing,
I was even more surprised by an ad hominem response.
Despite your anecdote, John, I still believe that the
mapping/exploration of underground resources (particularly where issues
of public safety or historical research are concerned) should be
performed using remote sensing technologies for which the accuracy has
been established by the scientific method. Results of dowsing surveys
should be repeatable, whether they involve multiple dowsers on a single
work site or a single dowser on multiple sites. To my knowledge, there
have been many anecdotal accounts of successful dowsing at individual
job sites, but no one has produced scientific evidence that dowsing
functions in a manner predictable by traditional Western laws of cause
and effect.
I am willing to consider the veracity of documented studies of
successful dowsing conducted in controlled environments by researchers
trained in the scientific method. Please point me toward an appropriate
web address or send documents to the email listed below.
Thank you, and sorry if I've struck any raw nerves...
Daniel R. Pratt
Architectural Historian/Archaeologist
HDR ONE COMPANY | Many Solutions
6190 Golden Hills Drive | Minneapolis, MN | 55416-1567
Phone: 763.591.5423 | Fax: 763.591.5413 | Email: [log in to unmask]
-----Original Message-----
From: John Mason [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
Sent: Tuesday, July 29, 2003 9:30 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Dowsing
I know many academics who have little time for dowsing.
As one with a somewhat broader mind, I had chance to put it to the test
in
the late 1980s at Calliachar Burn gold prospect, Aberfeldy, Scotland.
We were busy trenching a swarm of more-or-less parallel NW-striking thin
(<<1m)auriferous quartz-sulphide veins steeply cutting Dalradian
metasediments. Overburden on this heathery grouse-moor varied from 1.5
to
4m in thickness. The vein discoveries had been made by deep-overburden
geochemistry along lines at right-angles to the regional strike of the
veins, sample spacing 10 metres. You trenched any anomalies in a SW-NE
direction and any veins found were then trenched along strike, mapped
and
sampled. That's the scene set anyway.
One day we were strike-trenching a vein and lost it at a cross-course
fault. After scratching around for a bit without success, I thought "why
not" and took two lengths of old fencing-wire and bent them into a pair
of
rods, setting out with a bundle of canes in case anything showed. I
traversed across the moor at right-angles to the regional vein strike.
After a while the rods crossed sharply and I banged a cane into the
ground.
I then circled this point, getting two more crossovers and marking them.
They lined up NW-SE! I then headed on in a SE direction, covering as
much
ground as possible: by then a line of canes was in the ground. On
reaching
the river I noticed a rather "corrugated" look to the weed-covered rocks
in
the river-bed, bashed off a lump and lo and behold, quartz + sulphides.
The line of canes was then trenched in up to 4m of overburden and along
the
vein channel-samples yielding over 100g/t Au across 0.6m were obtained.
The
stream outcrop was opened up and produced some interesting visible gold
specimens.
My boss took me to one side and said something like "well done, but for
god's sake don't tell the top brass"!
Well, that was my experience of dowsing. Just thought I'd tell you.
John
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