DIVIDE 



1812 



DIVINATION 



These birds feed chiefly on fish, for which 

 they dive. Their flesh is dark and tough, but 

 they are sometimes killed for food. The black- 

 throated loon is smaller than the great north- 

 ern diver and has a throat entirely black. It 

 is very common in Canada. The red-throated 

 diver, only about twenty-five inches long and 

 of duller coloring than the loon, is also a com- 

 mon species of diver, and in Scotland is called 

 the rain goose. 



DIVIDE ' , in physical geography, is the name 

 given a crest of land, or water-parting, which 

 separates the streams flowing into one main 

 river from those flowing into another; or, in 

 other words, a height of land which separates 



ILLUSTRATING TWO DIVIDES 



the headwaters of one river system from an- 

 other. It is also called a watershed. 



A divide may consist of low land, like the 

 Height of Land, which extends across the 

 great plain in North America and separates 

 the rivers flowing into Hudson Bay from those 

 flowing into the Mississippi basin, or it may 

 consist of high land with steep slopes, like the 

 Rocky Mountains, which separate the rivers 

 flowing into the Mississippi from those flowing 

 into the Pacific. On Cutbank Pass in the Gla- 

 cier National Park one may pour water from a 

 pail into three different rivulets which will carry 

 it into Hudson Bay, the Pacific Ocean and Gulf 

 of Mexico, respectively. This point is actually 

 the top of the American continent. There are 

 several places in America where the beginnings 

 of streams flowing to the Pacific and to the 

 Gulf are within a few feet of each other. 



DIVINATION, divina'shun, is the practice 

 of determining the issue of events by signs and 

 omens, and by lot or systems of fortune-tell- 

 ing. It rests upon the assumption that human 

 fate is closely related to the forces of nature 



in a protective or providential relation, and im- 

 plies also the view that the reading of nature 

 is to be accomplished by a mystical guessing 

 of its secret meaning. These ideas underlie 

 magic and survive in superstition (see MAGIC; 

 SUPERSTITION). Divination constitutes so large 

 a part of the procedures of magic, of the occult, 

 and of the pseudo-sciences, that information 

 should be sought under these heads. It will 

 be sufficient to survey the types of divination 

 and give a general setting for its varied prac- 

 tices, constituting as they do one of the most 

 comprehensive and suggestive reactions of the 

 primitive mind (and of earlier forms of think- 

 ing) to the events of the material and spiritual 

 world. 



The division is fairly clear between natural 

 and artificial forms of divination, the latter 

 patterned upon the former and in course of 

 time giving rise to elaborate systems. The nat- 

 ural varieties of divination proceed upon omens 

 and portents in the course of nature, the con- 

 ception being that the intervening gods or 

 spirit-forces indicate the issue. The direct 

 search for such inspired messages led to the 

 institution of oracles, in which, as in the Delphic 

 oracles, the god spoke directly through the in- 

 spired medium (see ORACLES). More artificial 

 was the institution of augury, which, as the 

 word indicates, detected the omen in the flight 

 of birds. Dreams seem to have been generally 

 regarded as prophetic, and their interpretation 

 became one of the arts of the priest-magician 

 or seer. Oracles and dreams leave much to 

 the imaginative skill of the interpreter; the 

 oracular pronouncement was typically vague, 

 capable of several interpretations, and thus was 

 at once shrouded with an air of mystery and 

 left room for the later adjustment of the issue 

 to the prophecy. 



The unsought portent or omen remains the 

 type of the natural divination, in a primitive 

 sense providential. The appearance of a comet, 

 of a storm, of an eclipse, of a volcanic erup- 

 tion, or again, the shapes of clouds and the 

 movements of swarms of insects were directly 

 read as omens or warnings; similarly, the ap- 

 pearance of a flock of birds would indicate the 

 fate of an expedition. The sight of a hawk 

 would presage victory; of a crow, defeat; birds 

 appearing to the left would have one meaning; 

 to the right, another; their flight in one direc- 

 tion would be lucky ; in another, unlucky. The 

 hoot of an owl would be a bad sign, the cry 

 of an eagle, a good sign. Any accident would 

 be similarly interpreted. A typical instance is 



