THE MARINER'S COMPASS, NOT CHINESE. 85 



of the compass in the early European fleets, manned by 

 natural and instinctive seafarers, can be reasonably ac- 

 counted for, (and this I have yet to show) while the pres- 

 ence of the compass on the contemporary Chinese junks, 

 manned by people having no inborn inclination for the 

 sea, is a circumstance seemingly destitute of ancestry. 



The identity of construction of the two instruments, 

 European and Chinese, renders inevitable the presump- 

 tion that one is an imitation of the other. As between 

 people whose skill lies in originating and people whose 

 skill lies in the wonderful minuteness and accuracy of 

 their copies, few, I imagine, will hesitate in deciding 

 which was probably the re- producer; or fail to reach a 

 reasonable conviction that the mariner's compass of the 

 East is literally a "Chinese copy" of the instrument which 

 led, not the indolent Asiatic, but the daring mariners of 

 England and Spain and Portugal and Italy to the most 

 magnificent achievements of the human race. 



