Dowsing
![A dowser, from an 18th-century French book about superstitions](/Images/godic/202502/20/18th_century_dowser0848.jpg")
![Dowsing for metal ore, from 1556](/Images/godic/202502/20/Georgius_Agricola_Erzsucher0848.jpg")
![Use of a divining Rod observed in Britain in the late 18th century](/Images/godic/202502/20/Divining_Rod0848.jpg")
![1942: George Casely uses a hazel twig to attempt to find water on the land around his Devon farm](/Images/godic/202502/20/Agriculture_in_Britain-_Life_on_George_Casely's_Farm,_Devon,_England,_1942_D98170848.jpg")
Dowsing is a type of divination employed in attempts to locate ground water, buried metals or ores, gemstones, oil, gravesites, and many other objects and materials without the use of scientific apparatus. Dowsing is considered a pseudoscience, and there is no scientific evidence that it is any more effective than random chance.