52 COSMOS. 



al contemplation of the universe, it has been found necessa- 

 ry to divide into several sections, and to notice, the sources 

 from which we derive our knowledge of that which we have 

 here summarily arranged under one common point of view.* 

 We find that the application among the Chinese of the 

 directive power of the magnet, or the use of the north and 

 south direction of magnetic needles floating on the surface 

 of water, dates to an epoch which is^ probably more ancient 

 than the Doric migration and the return of the Heraclidae 

 into the Peloponnesus. It seems, moreover, very striking 

 that the use of the south direction of the needle should have 

 been first applied in Eastern Asia not to navigation but to 

 land traveling. In the anterior part of the magnetic wagon 

 a freely floating needle moved the arm and hand of a small 

 figure, which pointed toward the south. An apparatus of 

 this kind (caMed fse-nan, indicator of the south) was present- 

 ed during the dynasty of the Tscheu, 1100 years before our 

 era, to the embassadors of Tonquin and Cochin-China, to 

 guide them ove^ the vast plains which they would have to 

 cross in their homeward journey. The magnetic wagon was 

 used as late as the loth century of our era.f Several of 

 these wagons were carefully preserved in the imperial pal- 

 ace, and were employed in the building of Buddhist monas- 

 teries in fixing the points toward which the main sides of 

 the edifice should be directed. The frequent application of 

 magnetic apparatus gradually led the more intelligent of the 

 people to physical considerations regarding the nature of 

 magnetic phenomena. The Chinese eulogist of the magnet- 

 ic needle, Kuopho (a writer of the age of Constantine the 

 Great), compares, as I have already elsewhere remarked, the 

 attractive force of the magnet with that of rubbed amber. 

 This force, according to him, is " like a breath of wind 



* Cosmos, vol. i., p. 188 ; vol. ii., p. 253. 



t Humboldt. Asie Centrak, t. i., p. xl.-xlii. ; and Examen Crit. de 

 tHist. de la Geographie, t. iii,, p. 35. Eduard Biot, who has extend- 

 ed and confirmed by his own careful and bibliographical studies, and 

 with the assistance of my learned friend Stanislas Julien, the inves- 

 tigations made by Klaproth in reference to the epoch at which the 

 magnetic needle was first used in China, adduces an old tradition, 

 according to which the magnetic wagon was already in use in the reign 

 of the Emperor Hoang-ti. No allusion to this tradition can, however, 

 be found in any writers prior to the early Christian ages. This cele- 

 brated monarch is presumed to have lived 2600 years before our era 

 (that is to say, 1000 years before the expulsion of the Hyksos from 

 Egypt). Ed. Biot, sur la direction de Vaiguille aimantee en Cliine in 

 the Comptes rendus de VAcad. des Sciences, t. xix., 1844, p. 822. 



