e 
rr according to the 
. ae >= 
TSS > * s 
* Anwention of the Mariner's Compass. 24 
cardinal points, place a pitcher 
full of water in the mer : essel, to.be sheltered from the 
wind, and then take a needle and pass it through a piece of wood 
or reed, forming a cross, which they throw into the water in the 
pitcher prepaid for the purpose, and it floats. They then take a 
magnet large enough to fill the palm of the hand, or smaller, and 
bring it near the surface of the water, giving their hands a rota- 
tory movement towards the right, so that the needle turns about 
on the surface of the water. Then they mihi their hands 
all of a sudden, and truly the needle points north and south. I 
myself saw this done.on my voyage from Tripoli in Syria to Alex- 
andria, in the year 640,” (or 1242 of our era.) “They say,” he 
continues, “ that the captains who navigate the Indian ocean sup- 
ply the needle and piece of wood by a sort of fish, of thin iron, 
hollow, and so made with them, that, when thrown into the water 
it floats, and shows by its head and tail the two points of north 
and south.” So early, then, as the year 1242, the water-com- 
pass was in general use on the Syrian waters, and was known, 
it is to be presumed, as well to Arabian as to European navi- 
gators. But what this author, Béilak, says of the peculiar form, 
according to report, of the magnetic needle which was used in 
~ 
the Indian ocean, indicates an independent knowledge of it in 
that quarter of the globe; and recalling the signification of cala- 
mita, little green frog, and the Burman appellation for the com- 
pass, meaning Uzard, leads one to look further to the east than 
_ any of the Mohammedan countries for the original discovery of 
the polaric properties of the magnet. We shall presently see that 
between 1111 and 1117, the Chinese made a water-compass ex- 
actly such as Béilak describes that which he saw in 1242, in the 
Syrian waters, and also like that which Jacques de Vitry saw 
Within the first half of the thirteenth century, in the possession 
of Roger Bacon. 
The Chinese have been acquainted with the magnet and its 
attractive force and polarity from the highest antiquity. In a 
Chinese dictionary, composed in 121, by Hiu-tchin, the magnet 
'Smentioned, as a “stone with which one can give direction to 
the needle.” About a hundred years later, as we learn from P. ~ 
Gaubil, in his history of the dynasty of the Thang, there is found 
a distinct notice of the compass as an instrument by which to as- 
Sertain:the points of north and south. Under the dynasty of the 
Tsin, (ie. between 265 and 419,) Chinese vessels were already 
