THE MEDIEVAL COMPASS. 147 



landsman's gaze, being used only at sea, and then as occa- 

 sion required. Thus it might perhaps escape chronicle, 

 until some one, like Neckam, intending to write an ency- 

 clopaedia, instituted an inquisition into things maritime 

 sufficiently minute to bring the device to light. If 

 Neckam' s description be re-read in the light of this hypo- 

 thesis, it seems to be framed on just such broad lines as 

 would naturally be chosen by any one setting forth, for 

 the first time, a (to him) new and extraordinary appliance. 

 He tells simply what the contrivance does, but he is totally 

 ignorant why it so acts, and of the long series of discov- 

 eries which separates it from the magnetic knowledge of 

 Isidore; as ignorant as were the sailors in the English 

 ships who came into the English harbors, and who prob- 

 ably told him just what they knew themselves, and no 

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