Just this, from Gabriel Jars, Voygaes métallurgiques, t. 2, 1780, 1er mémoire : "elements de la géométrie souterraine, théorique et pratique" (written in 1740s, during his instruction trip in Brittany - he was learned by Koenig, a saxon mining engineer who directed Huelgoat-Poullaouen mines. Jars died in 1767 and his boob was published by his brother)
"De la découverte des filons et de leur dimension" ("Inventing veins and their measurement")
Premier problème ("First question"). Découvrir dans une certaine étendue de terrain les principaux filons qu'elle renferme, et en reconnaître leurs directions approchantes. ("Inventing in a broad place, chief veins it contains and knowing their approximating direction" : I think this is very important : the problem was for the eighteenth miner not only how find veins, but also (and perhaps primarily) to know their direction and continuation, indicates Jars... ).
§1. La découverte a lieu principalement dans les ravins ("inventing mainly occurs in ravines") où l'on aperçoit sa tête ou sortie ("where one can see its"head" or [outing ?"]. elle se fait aussi par des tranchées (one can do it also by trenches - like sometimes archaeology...), ou par un puit ou une galerie ou d'autres ouvrages déjà pratiques ("or by a pit or an addit, or another work already done"). Quelques-uns encore ont recours à la baguette divinatoire (someone still use [divining stick ?], à laquelle nous n'ajoutons aucune foi ("in which we have any sort of faith").
§2. etc...
In seventeenth and eighteenth mining France the mainly problem was not inventing mines, but work them during a long time (ie : more than a year or two...) and that without skilled workers. So engineers and Academists (Hellot, Trudaine) were looking for methods allowing lasting enterprises.
Sorry for my very very bad english. Sometines (not always) i'd like to be English...
Af Garçon
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Pr Anne-Françoise Garçon
Département Histoire
Université Rennes 2 - Haute Bretagne
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----- Original Message -----
From: [log in to unmask]
To: [log in to unmask]
Sent: Tuesday, July 29, 2003 9:10 PM
Subject: Re: Dowsing
I'm not sure myself. I know that dowsing has been used to explore mines and
search for veins for hundreds of years. I have a strong regard for our
ancestors, they were NOT stupid, and if a technique worked it would be used,
if not it would be dropped. We rarely, for example accept divine inspiration
as a reason to dig a mine, but from old accounts I have read, dowsing did
seem to hold much credit. There is a danger, with modern science, for it to
become as much a religion to some as the worship of a god, and many
scientists seem extremely zealous about disproving that which cannot be
proven by science (with today's technology). To my mind we should be open to
the ideas behind dowsing. I know of several surveyors who use dowsing in
advance of geophysics to identify target areas. they often end up surveying
the whole area but tend to say they should have stuck to the areas
identified by dowsing.
I find it refreshing the number of people who have come forward in favour of
dowsing, I see no reason to think any less of a person who tries to use
every tool at there disposal in the furtherance of their research, dowsing
does after all use another other poorly understood but "known to work"
object - the brain.
My general thoughts about dowsing, which I have not tried myself is that
there is every reason to suppose that some people are able to detect some
features with dowsing. But when one looks at the efforts of an individual,
it would be unwise to stake ones reputation or spend a great deal of effort
on dowsing evidence alone. But then, that's the case with Geophysics also.
I found a book which shows a dowsed outline of a Roman fort at Hexham, I'm
not sure if anyone has taken that one any further.
George Chaplin
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