Hanover Browsing

I AM glad to review here Kenneth Rob- erts' (Litt.D. '34) new book HenryGross and His Dowsing Rod, Double- day, 1951, , . • -ill T r i_ n „U

in this remarkable story Kenneth Rob- erts, with a passionate love for truth, and with a crusader's desire to see justice done, has set out to prove that in spite of "en- trenched ignorance that prevails in the minds of all scientists and laymen who have not worked for long periods of time with a skilled dowser," Henry Gross, a water dowser from Biddeford, Maine, with his dowsing rod even before he visited eachproperty, could tell infallibly "whether or not there were veins, whether the veins joined and where, the structure of the earth through which the veins ran, the quality of the water in the veins, and the number of gallons per minute that each one flowed."

The most remarkable proof of this in the book is the story of water dowsing in Bermuda. By applying his rod to a map of Bermuda eight hundred miles away, Henry Gross correctly said that there were three domes of good drinking water, and one contaminated dome in the island. Roberts and Mr. Gross went to Bermuda and proved it! In one of the places marked on the map by Mr. Gross, 2,640 gallons of fresh water per hour resulted, after five months of frustrating effort on the part of Roberts with drills, bulldozers, officials, drillers, and so on. Of this fact there can be no doubt.

Any fair-minded reader, unless contrary like the gentlemen from Vermont, will agree with Roberts' final advice to Henry Gross: "At finding water you have never failed: you have a peculiar affinity for water: with uncanny accuracy your rod tells you where water veins may be found on any piece of property, far or near: tells you with almost complete certainty the quantity of water running through a vein; only occasionally is uncertain as to the depth of the vein below the surface. Therefore stick to water. Welcome any scientist who wants to test the qualities of your rod, but insist that the scientist sticks to what you know: to what you have proved."

This is an important book, and whether or not you can accept extra-sensory perception, you can certainly believe in Henry Gross's amazing, and still unexplained, success with his dowsing rod.

For those who wish to go back and read some of the Greek and Latin classics, and who do not read the original languages, I can recommend some of the new translations in the Penguin Classics selling in this country for 35 cents.

I have before me admirable and readable translations of Virgil's Pastoral Poems (The Eclogues) done by E. V. Rieu. The aim of this book is to introduce new readers to the unknown delights of Latin poetry. These poems are the first that the author of The Aeneid published in book form, and less serious than this epic, they have a strong individuality of their own which remains fresh after twenty centuries.

It is my belief that if we stray too far from the so-called humanities we are going to become lost souls, if not dead ducks. The Penguin Classics offer an easy chance to recapture some of our great classical inheritance.

H. Mattingly has done a new translation of the Agricola and the Germania by Tacitus under the title: Tacitus on Britainand Germany. He speaks of the Germans as follows: "They satisfy their hunger without any elaborate service or appetizers. But they show no corresponding self-control in drinking. You have only to indulge their intemperance by supplying all that they crave, and you will gain as easy a victory through their vices as through your own arms."

Maybe we should drop casks of vodka over the Russkis instead of leaflets or atom bombs. Tacitus maybe has something.

E. F. Watling has done an exciting translation of The Theban Plays of Sophocles: King Oedipus (where the complex came from), Oedipus at Colonus, and Antigone.

Professor George Wood tells me that Dorothy Sayers' translation of The DivineComedy is fine, and I can also recommend J. M. Cohen's new translation of DonQuixote.

Soon to appear are translations of Homer's Iliad, by E. V. Rieu, Plato's The LastDays of Socrates, by Hugh Tredennick, The Idylls of Theocritus by Adeline Cook, The Nature of the Universe by Lucretius, translated by R. E. Latham, and the completion of The Divine Comedy by Miss Sayers (II Purgatory, and III Paradise), as well as many others.

My legal and philosophical friend Frank Horan '22, kindly sent me the Partisan Review series Number 3: Religion and theIntellectuals, a symposium conducted by such writers as Auden, Blackmur, Dewey, Maritain, I. A. Richards, and 24 other intellectuals. A little heady at times, still this issue can be recommended.

For those who may be concerned, as we all should be, with American education, and with the perennial problem of the separation of church and state, I can recommend as an objective study, and a clear statement of the subject: R. Freeman Butts, The American Tradition in Religion and Education (The Beacon Press, Boston, 1950). If the historic principle of separation of church and state is an indispensable element in our public policy, then this book should help us as individuals to make wise judgments concerning today's issues involving this principle.

Thomas M. Beers '34 sent me for Christmas a new edition, most tastefully printed, with maps and illustrations, of Mrs. Margaret I. Carrington's Absaraka: Home ofthe Crows, a western classic on the American Indian, the Fetterman massacre, and how the frontier really was in the sixties of the last century. This 48th addition to the Lakeside Classics (R. R. Donnelley & Sons Co.) will be enjoyed by anyone who can get his hands on a copy.

A promising new writer from England is Roderick Milton. His book Magic City, containing three stories of war-ravaged Vienna under allied occupation, will be enjoyed by any who know this city, or who like their stories short. The publisher is Rupert Hart-Davis.

I have also enjoyed Angela Thirkell's County Chronicle (Knopf), containing the further doings of Mrs. Brandon, Lord Silverbridge, Isabel Dale, the former bishop of Mngangaland (pronounced Lewsongaw), Sam Adams, and Lucy Marling, all cavorting blithely in the marvellous county of Barsetshire.

A new detective story writer, who is a darb in my opinion, is Nicholas Bentley (the son of the man who wrote Trent'sLast Case, and what a chip off the old block). I can recommend to you with enthusiasm his The Tongue-Tied Canary, and his latest, which I am now revelling in, The Floating Dutchman (London underworld setting).

THE DARTMOUTH CAMPUS IN WINTER DRESS