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a? . Tnvention of the Mariner's Compass. 94g 
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Surselva, (magnét,) the Hong (magnet-ké,) the Russian, 
(magnét, ) the Polish, (magnes, magnet, and magnet kamien, ) 
and the Vendish of Styria, (magnet,) where, excepting in the 
modern Greek, the Latin has unquestionably been the medium 
of transporting the word from the ancient Greek. f . 
_ Another name in use in several European idioms, as in the 
a French, the Romance language of Surset, the 
Bosnian, Croatian, and the Vendish of Styria, is calamita. This 
word appears to be of Greek origin, and is given by Pliny as the 
name of a small green frog. _'The application of the term to the 
magnet is explained by a fancied resemblance to that animal in 
the magnetic needle, when poised on water by means of small 
reeds, projecting beneath it like the legs of a frog in motion, ac- 
cording to the usual mode in early times, in Europe, of adapting 
it to the mariner’s use. But that the idea of such a resemblance 
was not original in Europe, one might be led to suspect, from 
the analogy of the Birman name for the compass anghmyaoung, 
Which signifies izard, and.will be rendered still more probable 
by evidence, hereafter to be given, that this mode of using the 
Magnetic needle in navigation, was adopted in China about eighty 
years previous to the earliest mention of the needle itself in any 
European writer. eS 
Many of the terms applied to the magnet, both in European and 
Asiatic languages, allude to one or another of its characteristic 
Properties. Among these, the French Vaimant, the lover, and 
_ the Spanish and Portuguese iman, with the same signification, 
is particularly worthy of notice, as having its precise correspond- 
ent in the Chinese thsu chy, of which a celebrated Chinese nat- 
uralist who flourished in 1580, observes: “if this stone had not 
a love for the iron, it would not make it come to it,” and a wri- 
ter of an age eight. centuries earlier: “The magnet draws the 
iton like a tender mother, who causes her children to come to 
her, and it is for this reason, that it has received its name.”’ In 
India also, the magnet was of old personified as capable of ten- 
der attachment, in the Sanscrit name thowmbaka, the kisser, from 
Which are derived several appellations now in use in that coun- 
tty, as tchoumbok in the Bengalee, and tchambak in the Hindos- 
‘anee. Another Sanscrit term for the magnet is ayaskanta, the 
ed stone, or ayaskanta-mani, the stone loved by iron, which 
So the Bengalee retains ; and in the Cingalese the magnet bears 
the name of kandaké-galah, the stone that loves, which is ap- 
al 
