Posted on 12/31/2012 2:54:30 PM PST by ColdOne
Marc Mondavi, a California winery operator, has a new vocation, water-witching, and is called upon to find ground water for local wineries, using copper rods.
"You either have it or you don't," Mondavi, 58, says of the skill that takes him to neighboring vineyards in northern California to find places, without the aid of science, to dig industrial-size wells. "If you have it, you have to take time to develop it."
(Excerpt) Read more at breitbart.com ...
Did you ever hear of the water table?
"Some water exists under the Earth's surface almost everywhere. (bold not in original) This explains why many dowsers are successful," a statement from the U.S. Geological Survey says.
Otherwise there is no way that dowsing for water is any better than simply pointing to the ground anywhere, and drilling - that ultimately finds water.
I've also seen the dowsing process done by many others, and saw it fail, repeatedly.
http://pubs.usgs.gov/gip/water_dowsing/pdf/water_dowsing.pdf
“...The natural explanation of “successful” water dowsing is that in many areas water would be hard to miss. The dowser commonly implies that the spot indicated by the rod is the only one where water could be found, but this is not necessarily true. In a region of adequate rainfall and favorable geology, it is difficult not to drill and find water!
Some water exists under the Earth’s surface almost everywhere. This explains why many dowsers appear to be successful.”
You are a much faster poster than I!
They use willow here. Most well digging outfits seem to have one on staff. Whether it’s just for show or what, I don’t know, but every house I’ve ever lived in, the well sites were witched, dowsed, whatever. Even the “repair” site for an alternate well site on the plot plan. They didn’t ask me they just did it.
I can do this...as long as there aren’t any pipes in the way.
He would use bent wires and he never made me did a hole where there was not a water line - and, as a teen, I really wanted him to fail.
Smug SOB!
We use it for cemetery reconstruction and have been very successful in finding blocks of graves.
This past year, we used Ground penetrating radar on one pioneer burial yard and checked it by witching.
Never used branches. I use bent wire coat hangers, but haven’t actually had anyone DIG for water. The wires do cross, though...extremely.
“Otherwise there is no way that dowsing for water is any better than simply pointing to the ground anywhere, and drilling”
I’ve run a public water supply for 30 years, and I have seen this done by two people. And it wasn’t for digging wells,, it was for finding lost water lines. I couldn’t find the lines, as my detector only does ferrous metals, and the lost lines were copper. One guy was 82, the other was 22. The old guy used willow branches, and had been in the well-drilling business for over 50 years. The young guy was a carpenter, and was just able to do it. He said his Dad and Grandfather could do it too. I think it might just be a “man thing.” Whenever a man over 40 visits my water plant, with all the water stored, and running through pipes, they always excuse themselves to go behind the shed and pee! Maybe it’s because we all have a sensitive short “pipe?”
When my kids were young, I’d often demonstrate this by having them hide a quarter in the grass of our 1/2 acre lawn, and I’d find it using a forked stick. I’d walk right to it...
Seems to me that it does work, and as an engineer, I have no idea why.
Keep it up and you could wind up paying 15% tithing and being assigned 50 hours a week to get to heaven.
Water witchign and money digging were what FLDS/LDS "Prophet" Joseph Smith did for a living before he started his little cult.
My neighbor handed me a Y shaped branch when I was a kid and son of a gun! We knew there was a water utilty pipe below and it nailed the location.
Well, I too ran into a guy a very long time ago in New Mexico that could find metal stuff underground. He used a string with a little ball of something tied to the end of it to find gold and other metals. I asked him what the little ball was, and he told me, 'Its a talisman made from an elk horn.' So I asked him how it worked and he told me it made the string vibrate just a tad when it went over metal.
I never saw him get very wealthy though - but I did meet another guy there that used a dry sluice with the great result of collecting a huge safe full of gold dust and nuggets over the years.
I did it a few times when I was a kid. Really a weird feeling, using a willow switch, and have that downward tugging keep occuring at the same particular spots. Didn’t seem to work for anybody else around me. But when my grandfather hired an old gent to witch for a place to dig a well, it led to those very same spots that I felt the tugging the day before. Quirky.
I was very skeptical and similarly thought you'd get water nearly anywhere you drill. At one job, my uncle told them where to to drill, they'd get water at 18-20' but not much and at 50' there would be good water. Exactly 20' there was a poor vein and (he missed it) at 55' there was a perfect supply.
I'm a believer.
It’s not occult. It’s magnetic lines of force. Just because you cant see it with your eyes doesn’t mean it’s the debil.
“’Its a talisman made from an elk horn.’ So I asked him how it worked and he told me it made the string vibrate just a tad when it went over metal.”
That’s interesting! But i’d bet it was him, more than the talisman, that detected metals.
When I ws a kid I worked at a filling station. We had to find the water line so we had an old guy come and witch it. He marked it and we got a backhoe in and found the line right off the bat. I’m a believer .
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