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Drought-hit Texas town uses "witching" to find water
yahoo news via Reuters ^ | June 30, 2011 | Jim Forsyth

Posted on 07/01/2011 4:06:31 PM PDT by bgill

Using a couple of brass rods and a big helping of ingenuity, one tiny Texas town has managed to subvert a drought-related crisis and bring water to the people.

The Llano River was dangerously close to drying up as Texas faces a punishing and record-breaking drought. Residents of this Hill Country town west of Austin depend on the river for their entire water supply.

It neared zero flow this week, and the city was looking at trucking in water from 20 miles away, when city leaders employed the old-fashioned "witching" technique to strike water in the limestone bedrock near the city's water treatment plant.

"It was done by the use of two brass spindles ... and you walk with them in either hand," said City Manager Finley deGraffenried.

(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...


TOPICS: Business/Economy; Culture/Society; US: Texas
KEYWORDS: dowsing; drought; texas; witching
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To: bgill

“Witching” (like dowsing) is completely illogical and wrong.

One should NEVER EVER do it.

(What a silly endeavour!)

And yet it works. Proveably and scientifically.

Maybe we DON’T understand our LORD’s Earth as well as we think?


21 posted on 07/01/2011 4:46:20 PM PDT by golux
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To: hellbender

I watched a preacher find the water line into my brother-in-law’s house. He had no clue where the water line was. They made him walk a straight line and his “wand” dropped right down over the line.

Scientifically, I believe it is possible. Some people’s bodies are more susceptible to magnetic fluctiations and such. I believe that is one element of it.

But I’ve seen it done. Absolutely.


22 posted on 07/01/2011 4:47:13 PM PDT by Bryan24 (When in doubt, move to the right..........)
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To: Bryan24

I saw a guy do it with willow. To prove it he had me put vice grips on the branches and it actually twisted in the vice grips at the spot.

We hit water..47 feet and 80 gal recovery.

I wouldnt have believed it if I hand not seen it with my own eyes.


23 posted on 07/01/2011 4:48:59 PM PDT by crz
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To: RegulatorCountry

“What’s even more interesting is to see often the same old guys witch a lost, buried power line with a copper coathanger.”

Some surveyers witch to find old survey pins. I thought it was a dumb idea till an old county surveyer found a pin we’d been looking for for an hour. When the rods crossed, we lowered a plumbob and it hit the lost pin dead center. May not work everytime, but that time convinced me.


24 posted on 07/01/2011 4:49:25 PM PDT by DugwayDuke
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To: crazyhorse691
I have seen dowsing work on several occasions. As for locating a good fishing spot it really doesn't work.

Well, if you used two sticks, that won't work. You have to use two fish.

25 posted on 07/01/2011 4:50:59 PM PDT by UCANSEE2 (Lame and ill-informed post)
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To: Dr. Bogus Pachysandra

I’ve dowsed successfully. When I was 15 some heavy construction equipment rumbled through the side yard of our rural house and crushed the pipe from the house to the septic tank. We were newbies from the city. I was assigned the task of digging a trench the length of the house to find out where the pipe was.

I’d been reading about dowsing and I figured it couldn’t hurt to try it—I was going to have to dig a long trench and it didn’t matter where I started. I used clotheshanger wires bent into an L-shape and a couple of Coke bottles rather than brass cylinders. The wires kept swinging at the same spot as I paced along the side of the house.

I dug there and voila, the pipe was right there six feet down or so.


26 posted on 07/01/2011 4:51:01 PM PDT by Colinsky
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To: DugwayDuke

I use coat hangers for witching and have located lost jewelry to underground water pipes.


27 posted on 07/01/2011 4:52:47 PM PDT by drdemars (Each moment new)
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To: hellbender

One of the largest aquifers in the United States (if not the world), whose size is still unknown and whose bottom has not been found, is in the middle of DEATH VALLEY.


28 posted on 07/01/2011 4:53:14 PM PDT by UCANSEE2 (Lame and ill-informed post)
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To: kittymyrib
In Texas, it’s called “witching,” and it works. My uncle used peach tree switches and never missed hitting water in always-dry West Texas.

I was taught to "witch" for water 60 years ago by an old man in a community very near Llano who before he retired was a medical doctor. He used a peach limb that had a fork in it. I, through trial and error, found that I could locate water, water pipes or any other source of underground water.

I still to this day cain't explain how it works but I would never drill for water unless I witched the location.

29 posted on 07/01/2011 4:55:50 PM PDT by River_Wrangler (Nothing difficult is ever easy!)
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To: crz

I saw the guy do it with a cloths hanger.


30 posted on 07/01/2011 5:00:00 PM PDT by Bryan24 (When in doubt, move to the right..........)
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To: Tijeras_Slim
Here's a comment from a well driller about dowsing:

I work for a small family-owned waterwell drilling company in west central IN. We deal with witchers almost daily. New customers want to know if it works, old timers are convinced. The geology in this part of Indiana is wildly varied. We have drilled sand and gravel wells anywhere from 40' to 240'. Several rock formations are found in our area. Rock wells can be anywhere from 50' to 400' with the yield between 10gal./hr. to 100+/ min. Let me assure you, no witcher has ever been any more than chance. As Randi has reported, any failure is written off. We have been told many times "You missed the water by 20' feet. Most well drillers will drill where a witcher picks. Most of the time it doesn't matter. The drillers knowledge is still the best bet.

31 posted on 07/01/2011 5:00:55 PM PDT by hellbender
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To: RegulatorCountry

I made a believer out of my wife when I fashioned two pieces of copper wiring and asked her to walk across the property.
Every time the wires crossed she was standing directly over a water or electrical line.
I knew where they were located, she did not.


32 posted on 07/01/2011 5:10:32 PM PDT by LFOD (Formerly - Iraq, Afgahnistan - back home in Dixie.)
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To: bgill

Here in Pennsyltucky we do it with a forked peach limb. It works, too. I have also heard of them using brass or copper rods, similar to what you described. It’s called “Dowsing”.


33 posted on 07/01/2011 5:19:45 PM PDT by Tucker39
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To: hellbender

Looks to me that NGWA is pimping for it’s members, not unheard of when it comes to protecting/generating income for connected people. I have a son who was going to buy a foothill property. Previous buyers and builders in the neighborhood couldn’t find water in the area and resorted to hauling in water and storing in large supply tanks. My son hired a ‘witcher’ to check the property he intended to buy. The ‘witcher’ located a spot and suggested that a well be drilled. End of story- the well produced plenty of water even if the iron content was high.


34 posted on 07/01/2011 5:20:20 PM PDT by noinfringers2
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To: bgill

I have an aunt and uncle that both have the gift of “water witching”. Unfortunately, I’ve never been able to get it to work.


35 posted on 07/01/2011 5:22:54 PM PDT by arderkrag (Georgia is God's Country.----------In the same way Rush is balance, I am consensus.)
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To: bgill

P.S. Here is what Wikipedia says about it: Dowsing. From Wikipedia, the free encyclopediaJump to: navigation, search
For the English iconoclast, see William Dowsing.

A dowser, from an 18th century French book about superstitions. Otto Edler von Graeve in 1913 Dowsing is a type of divination employed in attempts to locate ground water, buried metals or ores, gemstones, oil, gravesites,[1] and many other objects and materials, as well as so-called currents of earth radiation (Ley lines), without the use of scientific apparatus. Dowsing is also known as divining (especially in reference to interpretation of results),[2] doodlebugging (in the US)[citation needed], or (when searching specifically for water) water finding, water witching or water dowsing.[3]

A Y- or L-shaped twig or rod, called a dowsing rod, divining rod (Latin: virgula divina or baculus divinatorius) or witching rod is sometimes used during dowsing, although some dowsers use other equipment or no equipment at all.

Dowsing appears to have arisen in the context of Renaissance magic in Germany, and it remains popular among believers in Forteana or radiesthesia[4] although there is no accepted scientific rationale behind the concept and no scientific evidence that it is effective.


36 posted on 07/01/2011 5:24:27 PM PDT by Tucker39
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To: bgill

WOW, 92,000 GPM!!! The well bore must be 8 foot in diameter and the pressure 500 PSI!!!

Me thinks someone made a mathematical error on some level. Otherwise they better be prepared for San Antone to drag their City Limits west of em real fast.


37 posted on 07/01/2011 5:25:46 PM PDT by dusttoyou ("Progressives" are wee-weeing all over themselves, Foc nobama)
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To: hellbender

I saw a show once where a guy claimed he could not only find water, but also paper money. The host wanted to try a test and put a bill under one of two objects. He let the guy see where it went and then told him to show the audience what it would look like before they did the real test.

The guy chose the wrong location. DOH!


38 posted on 07/01/2011 5:30:27 PM PDT by Right Wing Assault (Dick Obama is more inexperienced now than he was before he was elected.)
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To: bgill

Divining rods do work. My family used them to find $20,000 that my spouse’s Depression-Era grandfather had buried in coffee cans on his property.


39 posted on 07/01/2011 5:35:28 PM PDT by BuckeyeTexan (There are those that break and bend. I'm the other kind. *4192*)
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To: UCANSEE2

That sounds like a fascinating read, have anymore information so some research can be done on the internet?


40 posted on 07/01/2011 5:45:27 PM PDT by Outlaw Woman
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