SCIENCE-SPAIN: Dowser to Seek Ground Water in Argentina

By Tito Drago Reprint | | Print |

Tito Drago

MADRID, Aug 24 2000 (IPS) - A Spanish geologist, who has made a career out of his skill in finding water in an unorthodox manner, will seek ground water next month in the west-central Argentine province of Mendoza, using a technique passed down to him by his forefathers.

Juan Figuerola, 62, a native of Madrid, is the son and grandson of water diviners — those to whom “the common people attribute the power of seeing what is hidden, even though it is underground,” according to the dictionary of the Spanish Royal Academy of Language.

But Figuerola, who was recently contracted by a company owning large tracts of land in Mendoza, a province bordering Chile, rejects that definition. “Water diviners do not see under the ground, but detect flows of ground water,” he said.

“Furthermore, not only the ‘common people’…but professionals, university graduates, government leaders and big businessmen as well have verified that our technique works,” he added.

Figuerola has searched for, and found, ground water in all of Spain’s provinces, as well as in Mexico, Morocco, Tunisia and Brazil.

He demonstrated to IPS how he works with his divining rod — two thin metal bars around 40-cms long, one-cm wide and one-mm thick, joined together at the ends with insulating tape.

The water diviner holds the other two tips, one in each hand, and with the arms held alongside the body and the forearms extended at a right angle, the apex of the divining rod is pointed forward.

The dowser then walks forward slowly, and when passing over a spot under which water flows, the point of the divining rod sways. But if the flow of water is abundant, the point actually leaps upwards.

During a recent test, Figuerola was blindfolded and made to wander in various directions on land under which a water pipe ran.

Someone who was hiding turned the faucet on and off in an arbitrary manner. When the water was not flowing, and Figuerola crossed over the pipe, his divining rod did not move. But if the water was running, the point of the rod jerked up — usually hitting his chest — as long as he had crossed the pipe at a perpendicular angle.

Branches of ash trees or of other strong, flexible wood are also used instead of metal rods. “The key is to walk in a very relaxed manner, and to have the necessary sensitivity,” he explained, because “any current changes the magnetic potential, due to the friction of the water as it flows underground.”

According to Figuerola, “the nervous system is a solenoid, a kind of coil like the ones used in radios, with the feet working as an antenna. When you pass over the water, perpendicular to the flow, there is a volley of ‘electrical charges’ that break the equilibrium of the rods held in the hands.”

In response to a sceptical expression on the face of one of his listeners, and without waiting for the next question, he said “there is no apparatus with the sensitivity of the brain. It is just a question of training it and letting it act without nervousness or tension.”

With that system, Figuerola said he could determine the precise spot to drill for water — and he cited a number of occasions on which he has actually done so. He can also give a fairly close approximation of the depth at which the ground water will be found and the strength of the flow, he added.

The deepest Figuerola has ever found water is 702 metres down, in the Spanish province of Murcia, in 1982.

Among the water diviner’s clients figure large companies like Nexo, which contracted his services when it was building its high- speed train, and Neiver, the owner of 18 industrial estates in the province of Madrid.

He has also been hired by “the army and other public institutions,” like the National Heritage office, which contracted him to find water on the property where the Zarzuela Palace, the residence of the royal family, is located.

When asked what role his training as a geologist played, he said that “after finding water, in order to obtain the permits for use, a geological report is necessary, which I draw up for my clients.”

Figuerola’s grandfather, who was also named Juan — as was his father — was born in 1880 in the eastern province of Valencia and worked as a chimney sweep and as a repairman of woodstoves. Later he built the first Spanish washing machine to use coal-heated water, and then began building boilers and windmills.

In the 1930s, Figuerola’s grandfather and father began to drill wells to install the windmills they sold.

In 1935, a Venezuelan who owned land in Trujillo, 250 kms west of Madrid, hired them to drill wells. When they got there, they found their client using a divining rod similar to the one employed by Figuerola today, to determine precisely where to drill.

Ground water was indeed found at that spot, and both Figuerola’s grandfather and father decided to learn the technique, which they transmitted to their successor.

Figuerola made his first, “and successful,” attempt at divining for water in 1955 in Alcarria, in the province of Guadalajara, around 100 kms east of Madrid.

Since then, the modern-day dowser has used his skill over and over again, within Spain and abroad. Next stop? Argentina.