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Andrew Lang - The Making of Religion – Chapter V – Crystal Visions, Savage and Civilised

Flacourt, describing the Malagasies, says that they squillent (a word not in Littre), that is, divine by crystals, which ‘fall from heaven when it thunders,’

Of course the rain reveals the crystals, as it does the flint instruments called ‘thunderbolts’ in many countries. 

 ’Lorsqu’ils squillent, ils ont une de ces pierres au coing de leurs tablettes, disans qu’elle a la vertu de faire faire operation a leur figure de geomance.’ 

 Probably they used the crystals as do the Apaches. 

On July 15 a Malagasy woman viewed, whether in her crystal or otherwise, two French vessels which, like the Spanish fleet, were ‘not in sight,’ also officers, and doctors, and others aboard, whom she had seen, before their return to France, in Madagascar.  The earliest of the ships did not arrive till August 11.