Chapter lvii. Of Geomancy, Hydromancy, Aeromancy, Pyromancy, four Divinations of Elements.
Moreover the Elements themselves teach us fatall events; whence those four famous kinds of Divinations, Geomancy, Hydromancy, Aeromancy, and Pyromancy, have got their names, of which the Sorceress in Lucan seems to boast her self, when she saith,
The Earth, the Aire, the Chaos, and the Skie,
The Seas, the Fields, the Rocks, and Mountains high
Foretell the truth -----
The first therefore is Geomancy, whicb 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 flowing, 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, a boy saw in the water the effigies of Mercury, which foretold in an hundred and fifty verses all the events of Mithridates his War. We read also that Numa Pompilius practiced 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 Lecanomancy, from a skin full of water, upon which they
