CHAP. LVII.
Of Geomancy, Hydromancy, Aeromancy, Pyromancy, four Divinations of Elements.
MOreover the Elements themſelves teach us ſatall events; whence thoſe four ſamous kinds of Divinations, Geomancy, Hydromancy, Aeromancy, and Pyromancy, have got their names, of which that Sorceress in Lucan ſeems to boaſt her ſelf, when the ſaith,
The Seas, the Fields, the Rocks, and Mountains high
Foretell the truth
The firſt therefore is Geomancy, which foresheweth future things by the motions of the earth, as alſo the noiſe, the ſwelling, the trembling, the chops, the pits, and exhalation, and other impreſſions, the art of which Almadel the Arabian ſets forth. But there is another kind of Geomancy, which Divines by points written upon the earth, by a certain power in the fall of it, which is not of preſent ſpeculation; but of that we shall speak hereafter.
Now Hydromancy doth perform its preſages by the impreſſions of water, their ebbing and ſlowing, their increaſes, and depreſſions, their tempeſts, and colours, and the like; to which alſo are added viſions, which are made in the waters. A kind of Divination found by the Perſians, as Varro reports, boy ſaw in the water the effigies of Mercury, which foretold in an hundred and fifty verſes all the event of Mithridates his War. We read alſo that Numa Pompilius practiſed Hydromancy; for in the water he called up the gods, and learned of them things to come. Which art alſo Pythagoras, a long time after Numa practiſed. There was of old a kind of Hydromancy, had in great eſteem amongſt the Aſſyrians, and it was called Leeanomancy, from a skin ſull of water, upon which they put
put
