red in themselves, but none the less
demanding attention, as exhibiting, in full energy, the survival, at the
end of the nineteenth century, of the practice of divination. It is true
that these attempts to forecast the future are commonly made in a
sportive manner and only with partial belief, being now for the most part
reduced to social sports. They belong also almost exclusively to the
female sex, who by way of amusement still keep up rites which are to
determine the future partner in life. Yet that these observances were
formerly performed with sober forethought may be seen by the
superstitious character with which in retired districts they are still
invested; it is likely that in this limited field we have the final
echoes of ceremonies employed to determine action and to supply means for
the estimation of every species of good or evil fortune. Among these
customs a considerable part may be of relatively recent origin, but a
number are undoubtedly ancient.

Particularly remarkable is the word by which in the English folk-lore of
America, at least, these practices seem to have been popularly entitled.
Dictionaries give no aid in explaining the signification of the word
"project," here used in the sense of a ceremony of divination. I cannot
offer any explanation as to the probable antiquity of the term; neither
middle-Latin nor Romance languages seem to offer parallels. One might
guess that if all were known, the use might be found to proceed from the
special language of mediaeval magic or astrology (perhaps
mirror-divination).

With practices of this sort has been connected an incident of colonial
history. During the accusations brought against alleged witches of Salem,
Massachusetts, in 1692, the chief agents were a group of "children"
belonging to a particular neighborhood of that town. It has been asserted
that these young persons, previous to the outbreak of the excitement,
formed a "circle" of girls in the habit of meeting for the purpose of
performing "magical tricks" (to use a phrase employed by Cotton Mather),
and that it was experience so acquired that fitted them for the part
afterwards played in the trials. This statement has been repeated by so
many recent writers as to become a commonplace of accepted history; it
would seem, however, that the representation depends on the invention of
a modern essayist, who transferred to the colonial period ideas derived
from his acquaintance with the phenomena of con