Fanciful Geophysics and the art of the Revealer

Geophysics and Genealogy. Aside from sharing a common first letter and sounding alike, if you didn’t know better, they could be related. They do in fact have nothing in common. One is the subject of natural science concerned with the physical processes and physical properties of the Earth, and the use of quantitative methods for their analysis. The other is the study of family lineage and history.

I have a passion for both so am happy to introduce you to my rather interesting Great Uncle Laurie and his ‘Revealer’.

Lawrence J. Veale circa. 1960 and ‘The Revealer’

There is a plentiful array of methods and techniques available to the Geophysicist, some better understood than others. Seismic reflection and refraction, gravity and magnetics are well established and sufficiently understood to have mainstream exploration and development applications. Others are less understood and some border on the fanciful. One of those is the ancient art of dowsing.

I don’t remember Great Uncle Laurie, he died when I was 4 years old. His wife, Elsie was my Fathers Aunt, a very elegant lady whom I remember well. I also remember vividly running around as a kid with a rather strange looking contraption claiming to be able to find one of many materials underground while two long rods swung wildly around my head. However, I suspect I might have him to thank for my interest in geophysics in later life.

Lawrence (Laurie) John Veale was born on 4th October 1895 in Dartmouth in the county of Devon in England. His was one of four children born to his father, Henry Peake Veale and mother, Ada King Veale. At the time of the 1911 census, Lawrence was 16 years old and a carpenter. At the start of the Great War in 1914 he was 19 years old and served as an Army sergeant in the 2nd Battalion of the Devonshire Regiment. He was discharged on the 29thApril 2019 having been awarded the Territorial force war medal. By the time of the 1939 census he had married my Great Aunt Elsie and was a building contractor.

Laurie Veale casting the black art of geophysics spell on my father, Trevor Parker in 1933.

It skipped a generation as he was a banker for 40 years. A similar black art some might argue.

At the age of 61 in the summer of 1957, he filed a patent for “Appliances for Detecting the Presence of Water, Metals and other materials”, the Revealer was born. I should of course acknowledge the name he chose, ReVEALEr, a clever play on his name. 

As an aside this is not the only time the Veale family name has been appropriated for literary license. His brother, Theo was a decorated war veteran whose exploits were described in a family history magazine under the title “Veale, Sage, and Onions”. 

So, how on earth did Great Uncle Laurie come up with the idea as there are no clues in his known history. Unfortunately, that piece of the tale is lost. Presumably his motivation was to invent a means to survey for underground pipes and the like and for the more general use of civil engineers.

So, what is dowsing and what is the Revealer.

Dowsing is a type of remote sensing used to locate ground water and other buried objects of various type. It is also known as divining or doodlebugging and has been around for a very long time.

Left, dowsing for metal ore, from 1556 "De re metallica libri XII" book. Right, 1942: George Casely uses a hazel twig to attempt to find water on the land around his Devon farm.

A Y-shaped twig or rod, or two L-shaped ones are used during dowsing. 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.

The Revealer takes this concept further. Attached to the handle on the dominant side of the user (apparently that is important) is a rack of sample materials (water, copper, lead, etc.) which are insulated from the housing by ceramic beads and attached with elastic thread. You can see this in the picture below. Whilst holding the handles, the operator hooked a finger over the sample, which was being sought, the Revealer would then only respond to the presence of that substance.

How might this work? I have no idea. Perhaps it was complete hokum, but I have no doubt that Uncle Laurie believed it worked. Weaver (1978) goes into great detail about what Uncle Laurie terms “paramagnetic suppressors.” These suppressors control the chemical interchange phenomenon which emanate between resonantly linked substances. They can be so arranged as to either suppress or enhance radiations by using specifically geometrid patterns of homogenous substances. This chemical interchange phenomenon, he calls homing conductance, since it homes onto the source of the radiation and conducts most efficiently when at resonance. Sounds convincing?

Laurie Veale did not make his fortune with the Revealer which was not a huge commercial success. His probate records show his estate to be valued at a mere £686 upon his death in 1968. In 1973, Barrington et al from the society for psychics   published a damming critique of the Revealer calling it “a quasi-hazel twig rather than a piece of scientific apparatus”. They also discuss finding records of the sale of about a hundred units to respectable surveying and engineering companies in the UK some of whom they interviewed. The feedback was (not surprisingly) mixed. I am surprised they had to conduct interviews as they were from the ESP committee of the Society for Psychical Research (sorry, I couldn’t resist!).

I recently discovered that the Revealer was also sold in the US. A fellow Brit now of Fairport, NY, Mr. Mike Caswell, became aware of the device soon after Laurie’s death and purchased some of the remaining units from his widow, Elsie. Apparently, they sold quite well in Virginia. 

They still show up from time to time at auctions. The fine example below sold a couple of years ago for £288.

Flints Auctions. Lot 160 (Fine Photographica & Instruments of Science & Medicine, 26th April 2018) A Revealer - Dowsing Instrument. Signed 'J. C. Oliver, Leeds', in fitted plush lined oak case, with instructions; Used to find underground services and minerals.

So, there you have it, I am extremely proud of Great Uncle Laurie, for whatever one might think of the underlying science he was a great entrepreneur and disruptor at a time when those terms were not quite as accepted as they are today.

And after all it might just be him I have to thank for my love of geophysics although I think I will stick to seismic for the time being. 

In my next blog I will be going back to something more mainstream. The sonic log. 

References:

Investigation of a divining instrument called the ‘Revealer’ by M.R. Barrington and J.W. Stiles. Journal of the Society for Psychical Research, VOL. 47, No. 757, 1973.

‘Veale Sage and Onions’. Devon Family History Society 'The Historian' no. 149 Feb 2014. 

Dowsing: A review of experimental research by George P. Hansen. Journal of the Society for Psychical Research, Vol. 51, No. 792, October 1982, pp. 343-367.

Divining the primary sense: Unfamiliar radiation in nature, art and science. Herbert L. Weaver. Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1978. ISBN 0710087349