Page:Amazing Stories Volume 10 Number 13.djvu/20

18 for umbrellas or waterproofs. This is a personal service of no vital importance for the individual, failing over and over again in accurate or even approximately accurate statements of the future.

The scope of the services of the Weather Bureau is constantly expanding, but at first it was mostly for the individual. Then the argiculturists began to take cognizance of it and shipping received warning of danger from storms and of general wind conditions. And with the rapid development of air-travel the service has acquired a new and unanticipated importance in the securing of reliable predictions, or better expressed, prognostications of weather for the use of airplane and dirigible travel.

The astrologers are supposed to work with planets and constellations, millions and millions of miles distant. The Weather Bureau, in evolving its predictions simply take things as they are in our immediate vicinity and try to tell what is going to happen within the next twenty-four hours. They are right some times and wrong other times. Yet they really do a great service to navigation especially. It is in the weather service that we find prognostications even accurate or reasonably so, for a few days in the future, while in the futile attempts, if they are worth being so called, of the astrologers, we get nothing but what should be definitely considered anticipated absurdities. It is true that they study the effects of sun spots, but that is in no astrological sense. It is really the physical effects of the light and heat of the sun and its stratosphere.

Suppose one cuts a forked V-shaped branch from a living bush. It must be flexible and at the ends somewhat thinner than a lead pencil. Eight or ten inches is a good length for the two limbs. Now hold it in the two hands by the ends, one end in the right and one in the left hand, the thumbs holding it down against the forefingers. It will project horizontally from the body. Hold it over a bucket of water and see if anything happens. There will be not the slightest change. Yet this is the famous divining-rod, which has been used over and over again to indicate a place where a well should be dug.

By holding it in a particular way, bending the ends outwards in the hands, the least twist given by them will make the ends rise and fall, rapidly or slowly, moving mysteriously, because observers look only at the apex of the fork and do not notice the slight bending of the ends between the operator's thumbs and fingers. They never dream that he moves his fingers.

The divining-rod is an old superstition. It has been used for centuries for exploring the depths of the earth in search of water for a well, and today many people believe in it. It has been investigated by supposedly intelligent people, but the puzzle remains. Why did the investigators not try to use the rod themselves? It provides an excellent supplement to what has been said of astrology.