ARABIAN AND MEDIEVAL SCIENCE. 71 



sions in classical authors. The directive power of the magnet is, how- 

 ever, never alluded to by them. The Chinese chroniclers describe, 

 nevertheless, the use of magnets at an extremely remote period, when 

 they were employed on land to indicate the cardinal points, and serve 

 as guides across some of the vast plains of Tartary. Even in the third 

 century of our era, according to Humboldt, Chinese ships navigated 

 the Indian Ocean by the guidance of the magnetic needle. There are 

 indications that the directive power of the magnet was known to the 

 Arabs; but the first reference to its use in Christian Europe occurs in 

 a poem by Guyot of Provence, in 1190. In a book published in the 

 earlier part of the thirteenth century occurs this passage : " The iron 

 needle, after contact with the loadstone, constantly turns to the North 

 Star, which, as the axis of the firmament, remains immovable whilst 

 the others revolve, and hence it is essentially necessary to those navi- 

 gating the ocean/' A curious passage occurs in another author, writing 

 in the latter half of the thirteenth century, with regard to the use of 

 the magnet at sea. He says : " No master mariner dares to use it, lest 

 he should be suspected of being a magician ; nor would the sailors ven- 

 ture to go to sea under the command of a man using an instrument 

 which so much appeared to be under the influence of the powers be- 

 low." It is generally agreed, however, that the first person who con- 

 structed the compass in such a form as to render it practically useful 

 to the seaman was a certain FLAVIO GIOIA, of Amalfi, near Naples, 

 who lived at the end of the thirteenth or the beginning of the four- 

 teenth century. Some use had doubtless been previously made of a 

 ruder compass, in which the magnet was merely floated by aid of some 

 light body on the surface of water ; but Gioia poised it on a pivot, and, 

 it is said, indicated its north-seeking extremity with the fleur-de-lys 

 (which still everywhere figures on the mariner's compass), in honour of 

 the prince then reigning in Naples, who was connected with the royal 

 family of France. 



The fourteenth century was marked by an increasing attention to 

 science and learning, and among other names we meet with those" 

 of many Englishmen who cultivated mathematics and astronomy, the 

 latter generally qualified by more or less acquaintance with astrology. 

 We need not here particularize these pioneers of restored science 

 further than to mention in passing RICHARD WALLINGFORD, Abbot of 

 St. Albans, who constructed the first clock with wheels of which we 

 have any distinct account. It showed the hours of the day, the ap- 

 parent motion of the sun, the changes of the moon, the times of the 

 tides, and other things. This was in 1326, in the reign of Edward I., 

 and the clock, which was placed in the Abbey of St. Albans, was going 

 in the time of Henry VIII. , when Leland says of it "that all Europe 

 could not produce such another." 



Barren as we find the Dark Ages in scientific discoveries, there are 

 a few useful or interesting inventions which must be referred to this 



