THE MARINER'S COMPASS. 53 



those epochs, which must be considered as the latest limits 

 beyond which it would be impossible for us to nrge oiit 

 inquiries. In the politico-satirical poem of Guyot of Pro- 

 vins, the mariner's compass is spoken of (1199) as an instru- 

 ment that had been long known to the Christian world ; and 

 this is also the case in the description of Palestine which we 

 owe to the Bishop of Ptolemais, Jaques de Vitry, and which 

 was completed between the years 1204 and 1215. Guided 

 by the magnetic needle the Catalans sailed along the north- 

 ern islands of Scotland as well as along the western shores of 

 tropical Africa, the Basques ventured forth in search of the 

 whale, and the Northmen made their way to the Azores 

 (the Bracir islands of Picigano). The Spanish Leyes de las 

 Partidas (del sabio Rey Don Alonso el nono), belonging to 

 the first half of the 13th century, extolled the magnetic 

 needle as " the true mediatrix (medianera) between the mag- 

 netic stone (la piedra) and the north star." Gilbert also, in 

 his celebrated work De Magnete Physiologia Nova, speaks of 

 the mariner's compass as a Chinese invention, although he 

 inconsiderately adds, that Marco Polo " qui apud Chinas 

 artem pyxidis didicit," first brought it to Italy. As, how- 

 ever, Marco Polo began his travels in 1271 and returned in 

 1295, it is evident from the testimony of Guyot of Provins 

 and Jaques de Vitry, that the compass was at all events used 

 in European seas from 60 to 70 years before Marco Polo set 

 forth on his journeyings. The designations zohron and 

 aphron, which Vincent of Beauvais applied in his Mirror of 

 Nature to the southern and northern ends of the magnetic 

 needle (1254), seem to indicate that it was through Arabian 

 pilots that Europeans became possessed of the Chinese com- 

 pass. These designations point to the same learned and 

 industrious nation of the Asiatic peninsula whose language 

 too often vainly appeals to us in our celestial maps and 

 globes. 



From the remarks which I have already made, there can 

 scarcely be a doubt that the general application of the 

 magnetic needle by Europeans to oceanic navigation as early 

 as the 12th century, and perhaps even earlier in individual 

 cases, originally proceeded from the basin of the Mediter- 

 ranean. The most essential share in its use seems to have 

 belonged to the Moorish pilots, the Genoese, Venetians, 



