60 THE INTELLECTUAL RISE IN ELECTRICITY. 



conditions, especially in subterranean works, that it is diffi- 

 cult to perceive how the alignments could have been 

 made without the aid of the magnetic needle. 



But there is nothing tangible to suggest Etruscan knowl- 

 edge of the compass, except a single object found in the 

 tombs, which bears an incoherent inscription concerning 

 " steering on the ocean by night and day," a bas-relief of 

 a man holding a rudder, and an eight-pointed star, very 

 like the similar star which has been on the compass card 

 ever since the latter appeared in Europe, and commonly 

 known as the u rose of the winds." It also exhibits, at 

 the end of the ray corresponding to the north, a figure 

 closely resembling the u fleur de lis" or "lyilly," which 

 also appeared upon the very earliest compasses. The 

 terminals of the rays corresponding to N. E., S. E., N. W., 

 and S. W., are similar and rounded, and thus differ from 

 the sharp apexes corresponding to the cardinal points. 



It was originally argued that the object was in fact a 

 compass dial above which the needle was suspended by a 

 fine thread or wire, 1 but with the refutation 2 of this theory 

 by the Italian antiquaries who showed it to be a lamp, 

 archaeological interest in it ceased. Nevertheless the con- 

 jecture is still possible that the dial which first appeared 

 in Italian compasses may have been copied by the medi- 

 aeval navigators from some such Etruscan design. 



With this brief survey, we may lay aside as unproved 

 by the evidence outlined, the various hypotheses which at- 

 tribute the invention of the compass to one or the other of 

 the ancient nations bordering upon the Mediterranean. 

 With regard to the Phoenicians and Greeks, there is no ap- 

 parent ground even for reasonable conjecture that they had 

 any knowledge of the magnet beyond its attractive power; 

 while as to the Egyptians it is extremely doubtful that 

 they knew anything of the lodestone at all. 



1 Sir W. Betham : Etruria-Celtica, cit. sup. 



'Dennis : The Cities and Cemeteries of Etruria, London, 1878. II., 

 105. 



