EUROPEAN TRADITIONS OF THE COMPASS. 133 



tween China and Western Europe and when no channel 

 can be recognized by which such news could have come 

 by way of the Arabs. Nevertheless, it is impossible, as 

 already stated, to conceive that the mariner's compass had 

 not been slowly evolving somewhere before Neckam de- 

 scribed it. Yet, where? We have examined in vain the 

 knowledge of all nations which at various times and by 

 various authorities have been credited with its invention. 

 How came it to be known and in use in Northern Europe 

 before Neckam' s day? 



Does the intellectual rise in electricity include a lost art 

 regained? True, traditions as to the antiquity of the com- 

 pass in Europe have never been wholly wanting. The 

 Emperor Charlemagne is said to have given to the cardinal 

 points (which, as we have seen, were established and so 

 termed by the Etruscans) the Teutonic names, North, 

 South, East and West, which they still bear ; and to have 

 also named the four intermediate rhumbs, North-East, 

 North-West, South-East and South-West. The sailors of 

 Bruges in Flanders, moreover, have always been reputed 

 to be the inventors of the remaining eight points, complet- 

 ing the thirty-two, to which they gave the present Teu- 

 tonic designations during the I2th century. 1 



The venerable Dr. Wallis, writing in 1702, at the age 

 of eighty-six, gives it as his opinion that the mariner's 

 compass was originally an English invention "for the 

 word 'compass' is an ancient English word for what we 

 otherwise call by a French name a ' circle.' And I am sure 

 that within my memory, in the place where I was born 

 and bred, it was wont to be so called, though the word 

 4 circle ' is more in use." 2 



'Anderson: Origin of Commerce, London, 1787, v. i, 61. Quoting 

 Goropius apud Morisotus, and Verstegan. 



2 Phil. Trans., xxii., 276; xxiii., 278. 



"My green bed embroidered with a compas," is mentioned in the will 

 of Edward, Duke of York, dec'd 1415. Nicolas: Testamenta Vetusta, 

 London, 1826. 



