110 THE INTELLECTUAL RISE IN ELECTRICITY. 



work of Bailak of Kibdjak already noted, and written in 

 1242, the first of all Arabian descriptions of the compass is 

 found. 



"The captains who navigate the Syrian Sea," he says, 

 4 'when the night is so obscure that they cannot perceive 

 any star to direct them according to the determination of 

 the four cardinal points, take a vessel full of water which 

 they place sheltered from the wind and within the ship. 

 Then they take a needle, which they enclose in a piece 

 of wood or reed formed in the shape of a cross. They 

 throw it in the water contained in the vase, so that it 

 floats. Then they take a magnet stone large enough to 

 fill the palm of the hand, or smaller. They bring it to the 

 surface of the water, and give to the hand a movement of 

 rotation toward the right, so that the needle turns on the 

 surface of the water. Then they withdraw the hand sud- 

 denly, and at once the needle, by its two points, faces to 

 the south and to the north. I have seen them, with my 

 own eyes, do that, during my voyage at sea from Tripolis 

 to Alexandria in the year 640 (or 1240 A. D.). 1 



Bailak's assertion that the compass was in use at this 

 date is of course, in itself, enough to dispose of the oft re- 

 peated statement that the first tidings of it were brought 

 to Europe by Marco Polo, for that traveler did not return 

 from Cathay until 1295. But the theory of its invention 

 by the Eastern Arabs must also fall; for, at the time that 

 Bailak wrote, the Northmen had been steering their ships 

 by the magnet needle for more than half a century, and 

 the compass was well known to the sailors of England, 

 France and Italy. 



That the manners of Christian Spain had like know- 

 ledge may perhaps be inferred ; but the earliest Spanish 

 record of the compass which has been found is in the 

 famous compilation of laws known as L,as Siete Partidas, 2 



1 Klaproth : 57. From Arab MSS., No. 970, Bib. Nat. Paris. 



2 Las Siete Partidas del Key Don Alfonso El Sabio. Madrid, 1807. 

 Part IT., Title IX., Law 28. 



