News from the Allegheny Front

[hertinkness]

I finished two reports today. I should be able to send one out tomorrow, and get the other one into typing. It's really kind of cool. One of the sites is in Baltimore, and I think you can see the effect of sea level rise on the groundwater levels in the wells.

***

Dad had his knee replaced on Friday- he ended up only getting a partial instead of a full (which is kind of like saying you "only" had to have bypass surgery and not triple bypass). But he came home today, so I'm going to call them later and see how its going.

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The check engine light in my car has come on. D: Probably nothing, but I'm getting it checked anyway. I need to meet one of the managers at the mechanic's- not only was he nice enough to tell me where he gets work done on his car, but he offered to give me a ride. Of course, if my car is really going to explode and it will take a few days to fix, I'm calling Enterprise. Not going to take advantage of someone's goodwill like that.

***

Remember the 1400 foot dry hole, and how the property owner called in a dowser to find another spot? Guess what he found? A 700 foot dry hole! Score one for real science! Of course, that means the last site we're trying is do-or-die. And they're drilling tomorrow. Freakin yay.

Comments

[holioli.livejournal.com]

Have you seen that new show, Psych, about the dude who is uber observant but a total fake? I imagine dowsers are much along the same vein. Do they still use those awkward metal rod things??

[angharads-house.livejournal.com]

sometimes drilling does work okay, though. we got lucky today, nailed our target within 5 cm in the first core, at 282 metres depth. score one for luck, perhaps....

so, good luck to you with the third hole!

[interamnia.livejournal.com]

25 years ago I went to a lecture on dowsing while studying Archaeology at university. The presenter started off by suggesting his support of dowsing was the equivalent of "intellectual suicide". The audience agreed, laughing. I was one of them.

His primary interest was in Anglo-Saxon churches. Very often these survived their early years, made money, got built over and expanded over the years - completely swallowing up the original form. Even more often, the current Church refused to let excavations occur within the walls, denying archaeologists the ability to confirm (or not) the presence of an AS original.

He produced data provided by dowsers on a number of churches in the east of England that suggested many had the right form, buried under more modern flooring. He applied scientific methods to further research (double-blind studies - drawing on dowsers who knew nothing about what they were being asked to find) and the results were "useful". The audience started to listen intently.

Eventually, with permission to excavate one church, he had it dowsed first and the results tallied remarkably well with the physical evidence later obtained.

He was a sceptic, but suggested that dowsing could, in many cases, save money by directing excavations from the start, and therefore it was a valid approach to this sort of archaeology.

I can see how foundation courses just a few feet underground might affect humidity levels, magnetic fields or whatever (I don't buy the "water at 500m" sort of dowsing). That said, I couldn't see how local effects could affect the subconscious (perhaps), and hence the muscles in the back and shoulders, which cause the sticks/pendulum to move.

My "conversion" came when I tried it myself. Before ruling it out as preposterous, why not give it a go? Two biro tubes and two "L" shaped bits of wire. Relax, and walk slowly around your home. Try going through a doorway. And tell me what happens. :-)

[angry-geologist.livejournal.com]

I've got my own thoughts about that. See, I think that people are smarter about the physical world than even they think they are. As soon as I get my thoughts together, I'm going to write something about it.

[zenkitty-714.livejournal.com]

Aw, if you'd just dug down 701 feet you'd have hit water!

Seriously, though, I can't explain it, but my grandparents found all the wells on their farm using a dowser. A "water witch", as my grandma called her. She was right, every time.

Anyway.

[angry-geologist.livejournal.com]

I think she might have been right because she knew what to look for (whether she realized it consciously or not) rather than what the two sticks told her.

[zenkitty-714.livejournal.com]

Entirely possible. Although I'm open to "extreme possibilities", as Mulder would say, I can't fathom the magic bendy sticks.