Jun 28, 2019 04:30 AM
https://www.theatlantic.com/science/arch...rt/592564/
EXCERPT: . . . If this all sounds a little hokey, you’re not the first to think so. The practice of water witching has been debunked time and time again. More surprising is the number of people who credit it—you’d be hard-pressed to find a single well-drilling operation in the Southwest that doesn’t believe in and use water witching.
This has been going on long enough that in 1917 the U.S. Department of the Interior, in cooperation with the U.S. Geological Survey, issued an official, book-length report to expose its baseless science. In the report, written by the geologist Arthur J. Ellis, you can hear the raw frustration in Ellis’s prose as he tries, once and for all, to put the matter to bed. “It is difficult to see how for practical purposes the entire matter could be more thoroughly discredited, and it should be obvious to everyone that further tests by the U.S. Geological Survey of this so-called ‘witching’ for water, oil, or other minerals would be a misuse of public funds,” Ellis wrote in his introductory note. [...] Ellis’s report, available for 10 cents at the time, was meant to be distributed, and its message disseminated. Yet, more than a century later, the custom of water witching has endured. And almost everyone has a story to tell.
[...] The geologist Jeff Bennett may be the only man in Texas who doesn’t believe in water witching, and he’s well aware of his minority status. He ... never met a driller who didn’t want to “witch it.” Bennett makes a compelling argument. You can drill a hole just about anywhere, and if you mine deep enough, you will most likely find water; the chances are ever in the dowser’s favor. “The question is: Is it the easiest water? Is it the most water? Is it the best place to drill?” he says. Bennett prefers to rely on regular old science instead, looking at the geological features of the landscape—such as clefts and fault lines—that paint a picture of what might lie beneath. Of water witching, he says, “It’s just guessing. And sometimes they’re good guesses. Sometimes they’re not.”
“So, why do you think so many people believe it?” I asked him. “Everyone loves to believe in magic,” he said. (MORE - details)
EXCERPT: . . . If this all sounds a little hokey, you’re not the first to think so. The practice of water witching has been debunked time and time again. More surprising is the number of people who credit it—you’d be hard-pressed to find a single well-drilling operation in the Southwest that doesn’t believe in and use water witching.
This has been going on long enough that in 1917 the U.S. Department of the Interior, in cooperation with the U.S. Geological Survey, issued an official, book-length report to expose its baseless science. In the report, written by the geologist Arthur J. Ellis, you can hear the raw frustration in Ellis’s prose as he tries, once and for all, to put the matter to bed. “It is difficult to see how for practical purposes the entire matter could be more thoroughly discredited, and it should be obvious to everyone that further tests by the U.S. Geological Survey of this so-called ‘witching’ for water, oil, or other minerals would be a misuse of public funds,” Ellis wrote in his introductory note. [...] Ellis’s report, available for 10 cents at the time, was meant to be distributed, and its message disseminated. Yet, more than a century later, the custom of water witching has endured. And almost everyone has a story to tell.
[...] The geologist Jeff Bennett may be the only man in Texas who doesn’t believe in water witching, and he’s well aware of his minority status. He ... never met a driller who didn’t want to “witch it.” Bennett makes a compelling argument. You can drill a hole just about anywhere, and if you mine deep enough, you will most likely find water; the chances are ever in the dowser’s favor. “The question is: Is it the easiest water? Is it the most water? Is it the best place to drill?” he says. Bennett prefers to rely on regular old science instead, looking at the geological features of the landscape—such as clefts and fault lines—that paint a picture of what might lie beneath. Of water witching, he says, “It’s just guessing. And sometimes they’re good guesses. Sometimes they’re not.”
“So, why do you think so many people believe it?” I asked him. “Everyone loves to believe in magic,” he said. (MORE - details)