THE UNIVERSE. OCEANIC DISCOVERIES. 257 



era), mention is made of "magnetic cars" given, more than 

 900 years before, by the emperor Tschingwang of the old 

 dynasty of the Tscheu to the ambassadors from Tunkin and 

 Cochin China, that they might not miss their way on their 

 homeward journey by land. In Hiutschin's dictionary 

 Schuewen, written in the third century under the dynasty 

 of the Han, a description is given of the manner in which 

 the property of pointing with one extremity to the south is 

 communicated to an iron bar : navigation being then most 

 usually directed to the south, the end of the magnet which 

 pointed southwards was the one always referred to. A 

 century later, under the dynasty of the Tsin, Chinese ships 

 used the south magnetic direction to guide their course in 

 the open sea, and these ships carried the knowledge of the 

 compass to India, and from thence to the east coast of Africa. 

 The Arabic terms zophron and aphron (for south and north) 

 ( 399 ) which Vincent of Beauvais in his mirror of nature 

 gives to the two ends ot the magnetic needle, shew (as do 

 the many Arabic names of stars which we still employ) the 

 channel through which the nations of the West received 

 much of their knowledge. In Christian Europe the use of 

 the compass is first mentioned as a perfectly familiar subject 

 in the politico-satirical poem called " La Bible," written by 

 Guyot of Provence in 1190, and in the description of 

 Palestine by Jacob of Vitry, Bishop of Ptolemais, between 

 1204 and 1215. Dante (Parad. xii. 29) alludes in a com- 

 parison to the " needle which points to the star/' 



The discovery of the mariner's compass was long ascribed 

 to Mavio Gioja of Positano, a place not far from the beauti- 

 ful Amain, which its widely extended maritime laws rendered 

 so celebrated; perhaps he may have made (1302) some 



