DOUBTS AS TO THE SOUTH-POINTING CARTS. 8 1 



Chinese ship, is burnt.'* Barrow also notes that a Chi- 

 nese navigator not only considers the magnet needle as a 

 guide to direct his track through the ocean, but is per- 

 suaded that the spirit by which its motions are influenced 

 is the guardian deity of his vessel. 



From the actual Chinese records we have now found 

 that the legends of south-pointing chariots antedating the 

 Christian Era are probably mythical. No reference to the 

 lodestone appears in Chinese literature until 121 A. D. 

 If Chinese knowledge of the magnet dates from about this 

 time, then, certainly, so-called south-pointing chariots 

 existing at an earlier period could not have been magnetic, 

 and the omission of any mention of the lodestone in the 

 descriptions of them follows of necessity. If, after 121 

 A. D., the magnet was used in them, then it is difficult to 

 reconcile this with the fact that the later writings continued 

 to describe the chariots in the same terms for centuries 

 and until long after the compass had come into general 

 use in Europe, and never contained a word concerning the 

 agency upon which their south-pointing virtue depended. 

 It is, moreover, a curious circumstance that while the first 

 south-pointing chariot known in Japan was constructed by 

 a Buddhist priest in 658 A. D., the lodestone itself was not 

 found in that country until nearly half a century later. 1 



No recorded evidence of the attraction of the magnet or 

 amber appears in the Chinese books of earlier date than 

 the fourth century of our era, and then we find it explained 

 by a physical theory totally out of harmony with Chinese 

 modes of thought and the same as that which had been 

 advanced by the Greeks, eight hundred years before. 



Turning to the characteristics of the people themselves, 

 it is undeniable that among them have originated many 

 inventions of great importance. But each achievement is 

 isolated. It cannot be traced in correlation with anything 

 else, nor as the result of any evolutionary process or grad- 

 ual development. Nothing is more clear than the ab- 



1 Klaproth, pp. 93-94. 



