76 THE INTELLECTUAL RISE IN ELECTRICITY. 



Almost exactly the same recital appears in a medical 

 history composed in the years mi to IH7. 1 And it has 

 been claimed that a record exists of the use of the compass 

 on board the ship which carried a Chinese ambassador 

 from Ning-po to Corea during the year H22. 2 



Two very significant facts may here be noted, namely, 

 that exactly the same knowledge (the variation of the needle 

 excepted) existed in undoubted connection with the nau- 

 tical compass in Europe at a closely approximate period ; 

 and second, that in the before quoted description of two 

 instruments no nautical employment of either of them is 

 suggested. The latter fact is fully recognized by Klap- 

 roth, who admits that he can find "no indubitable use" 

 of the compass in the Chinese marine until toward the 

 end of the I3th century, at which time, as will hereafter 

 be abundantly proved, it had been on European ships for 

 a hundred years. 



The tendency of the magnetic needle to depart from 

 true north (commonly termed its variation), appears to 

 have been observed by the Chinese geomancers in the 

 compasses used by them, long before any marine use of 

 the instrument was made. A so-called life of Yi-hing, a 

 Buddhist priest and imperial astronomer, undertakes to 

 show that the variation in the 8th century was nearly 

 three degrees to the right, or west of south. Later, we 

 find the geomancers adding special circles of symbols to 

 the compass card; such as a circle of nine fictitious stars, 

 a circle of sixty dragons, and so on; and, among these, 

 circles of points especially constructed to allow for varia- 

 tion. This was done in the year 900 by Yang Yi when 

 the variation was 5 15' east of south, and again three 

 centuries later when it had increased to 7 30', in the same 

 direction. 



Such, in brief, is the evidence which the Chinese re- 



1 Pen thsao yan i, quoted by Klaproth, 68. 



2 Trans. Asiat. Soc. of Japan, 1880, viii. 475. Jour. North China Branch 

 Roy. As. Soc., New Ser., xi., 123. Shanghae, 1877. 



