30Prior to the invention of the portable metal detector (1931) and other more recent technologies to map features under the earth, gold seekers would deploy other methods. A 1751 magazine article explains how a divining rod, normally used to seek out water, could be used to find precious metals: "Metals have different degrees of attraction; gold is the strongest, next copper then iron, silver, tin, lead, bones, coals, springs of water, and limestone." (Using the Virgula Divina" from The Gentleman's Magazine, November, 1751. Quoted in Jessup, Ronald. Curiosities of British Archeology. Chinchester: Phillipmore & Co., Ltd., 1974. 85-86.)
Another "curiosity" from the same text quotes from a 1953 newspaper account, "They See When Hypnotised," about an archaeologist who put his assistants into a hypnotic trance at a historic location so that they might see into the past. "I have been able to send their minds back into the past. They have been able to describe and make sketches of things which happened during the Norman Conquest." (Daily Sketch, August 18, 1953)