loadstone: tlio fishlikc form is very significant, for 

 this is distinctly Chinese practice. In a second 

 Muslim reference, that of Bailak al-QabajaqI {ca. 

 1282), the ordinary wet-compass is termed "al- 

 konbas," another indication that it was foreign to 

 that language and culture. ^^ 



There is therefore reasonable grounds for supijort- 

 ing the medieval European tradition that the mag- 

 netic compass had first come from China, though one 

 cannot well admit that the first news of it was brought, 

 as the legend states, by Marco Polo, when he re- 

 turned home in 1260. There might well have been 

 another wave of interest, giving the impetus to Peter 

 Peregrinus at this time, but an earlier transmission, 

 perhaps along the silk road or by travelers in cru- 

 sades, must be postulated to account for the evidence 

 in Europe, ca. 1200. The earlier influx docs not play 

 any great part in otn- main story; it arrived in Euro[)e 

 before the transmission of astronomy from Islam had 

 got under way sufficiently to make protoclocks a 



<' Balmer, op. cil. (footnote 45), p. 53. 



subject of interest. For a second transmission, we 

 have already seen how the relevant texts seem to 

 cluster, in France ca. 1270, around a complex in which 

 the protoclocks seem comhinccl wiih the ideas of 

 perpciual motion wheels and wiili new inforjnation 

 about the magnetic compass. 



The [)()int of this jiaper is that such a complex 

 exists, cutting across the histories of the clock, the 

 various types of astronomical machines, and the 

 magnetic compass, and including the origin of "self- 

 moving wheels." It seems to trace a path extending 

 from China, through India and through Eastern and 

 Western Islam, ending in Europe in the Middle 

 Ages. This path is not a simple one, for the various 

 elements make their appearances in different combi- 

 nations from ])lace to place, sometimes one may be 

 dominant, sometimes another may be al)scn(. Only 

 by treating it as a whole has it been [lossible lo pro- 

 duce the threads of continuity wliirh will, I hope, 

 make further research jjossihle, circumventing the 

 blind alleys found iit the past and leading eventually 

 to a complete understanding of the first complicated 

 scientific- machines. 



112 



BULLETIN 218: CONTRIBUTIONS FROM THE MUSEUM OF HISTORY AND TECHNOLOGY 



