82 COSMOS. 



As the excessive mobility of the floating Chinese needles 

 rendered it difficult to observe, and note down the ir*dica- 

 tions which they afforded, another arrangement was adopted 

 in their place as early as the 12th century of our era, in 

 which the needle that was freely suspended in the air was 

 attached to a fine cotton or silken thread exactly in the 

 same manner as Couiomb's suspension which was first used 

 by William Gilbert in Western Europe. By means of this 

 more perfect apparatus, 66 the Chinese as early as the begin- 

 ning of the 12th century determined the amount of the 

 western variation, which in that portion of Asia seems only 

 to undergo very inconsiderable and slow changes. From its 

 use on land, the compass was finally adapted to maritime 

 purposes, and under the dynasty of Tsin, in the 4th century 

 of our era, Chinese vessels under the guidance of the conp.pass 

 visited Indian ports and the eastern coast of Africa. 



Fully 200 years earlier, under the reign of Marcus Aurelius 

 Antoninus, who is called An-tun by the writers of the 

 dynasty of Han, Roman legates came by sea by way of Ton- 

 quin to China. The application of the magnetic needle to 

 European navigation was however not owing to so transient 

 a source of intercourse, for it was not until its use had 

 become general thoughout the whole of the Indian Ocean, 

 along the shores of Persia and Arabia, that it was introduced 

 into the West in the 12th century, either directly through 

 the influence of the Arabs or through the agency of the 

 Crusaders, who since 1096 had been brought in contact with 

 Egypt and the true Oriental regions. In. historical investi- 

 gations of this nature, we can only determine with certainty 



the physiological school. " The attracting breath," which, according 

 to the Chinese physicist, Kuopho, "permeates both the magnet and 

 amber," reminds us, according to Buschmann's investigations into the 

 Mexican language, of the aztec name of the magnet tlaihioanani tetl, 

 signifying " the stone which attracts by its breath" (from ihiotl, breath, 

 and nna, to draw or attract). 



56 The remarks which Klaproth has extracted from the Penthsaoyan 

 regarding this singular apparatus are given more fully in the Mung- 

 kld-vi-than, Comptes rendus, t. xix, p. 365. We may here ask why, in 

 this latter treatise, as well as in a Chinese book on plants, it is stated 

 that the cypress turns towards the west, and, more generally, that the 

 magnetic needle points towards the south? Does this imply a more 

 luxuriant development of the branches on the side nearest the sun, or 

 in consequence of the direction of the prevalent winds? 



