Water is one of the most valuable and influential natural resources because of its industrial and domestic importance. Access to safe water is essential to sustain life and indispensable for a healthy and dignified life. In that light, there are many water and exploration and exploitation methods.
In our local communities and households, the need for this resource and due to its scarcity has driven to the digging or drilling of wells and boreholes in order to have sufficient water to carry out daily domestic works at homes. But in many households digging of such facilities is done mostly by trial and error because of lack of expertise to pinpoint the exact location where the underground water source is found with a good yield and great recharge. This article therefore is meant to talk about a quite unusual method to identify a good location around your households or area where the best underground water yield is. This method is called water dowsing or water witching.
What is Water Dowsing or Water Witching?
“Water dowsing” refers in general to the practice of using a forked stick, rod, pendulum, or similar device to locate underground water, minerals, or other hidden or lost substances, and has been a subject of discussion and controversy for hundreds, if not thousands, of years.
This method doesn’t have a specific type of tools or methods but most dowsers (also called diviners or water witches) probably still use the traditional forked stick, which may come from a variety of trees, including the willow, peach, and witchhazel. Other dowsers may use keys, wire coat hangers, pliers, wire rods, pendulums, or various kinds of elaborate boxes and electrical instruments.
How Water Dowsing or Water Witching Works?
In the classic method of using a forked stick, one fork is held in each hand with the palms upward. The bottom or butt end of the “Y” is pointed skyward at an angle of about 45 degrees. The dowser then walks back and forth over the area to be tested. When she/he passes over a source of water, the butt end of the stick is supposed to rotate or be attracted downward.
Another classic method is holding two rod horizontally and moving back and forth around the area. When the dowser is close to a water source the two rods get attracted to each other. The stronger the attraction, the better the water source.
Water dowsers practice mainly in rural or suburban communities where residents are uncertain as to how to locate the best and cheapest supply of groundwater given that drilling and development of wells is quite costly and hence gambling is not advised.
Water dowsing successes from past practices is quite convincing but when put up to scientific examination and explanation it presents a very different picture. However, the method is limited to pinpointing the water source location because it cannot provide information on level of depth, geologic and geophysical properties of the aquifer (water bearing formation).
Nformi T. Ramses A.
6th Batch
