_ oe : a i é 3 p 
; Invention of the Mariner’s Compass. 249 
“80 constructed as always to ir e the direction of the south.— 
e cars which showed the south,” it is added, “always went 
in front, to show the way to those who were behind, and to make 
known the four cardinal’points.” In the year 235, a Chinese em- 
peror ordered one Makitin to construct a “ car which would show 
‘the south,” to be deposited in a sort of Museum ; and we are in- 
formed that the invention had then, for some time, been lost, and 
was recovered by the ingenuity of Makiun. In’a book of annals 
of the dynasty of the Tin, the magnetic car of a previousiage is 
thus described: “'The figure sculptured in wood, standing upon 
the magnetic car, represented a genius dressed in feathers. In 
whatever direction the car inclined or turned, the hand of the 
genius pointed invariably to the south. When the Emperor went 
out in form, in his carriage, this car led the van, and served to 
show the four cardinal points.” From the year 235, the con- 
struction of a magnetic car seems to have been a puzzle which 
different Chinese emperors proposed to the ingenious men of their 
courts, and the knowledge of the invention appears to have been 
confined within very narrow limits. = 
Between 806 and 820, under the Thang dynasty, were first 
constructed cars called Kin koung yuan. 'These were magnetic 
cars to which had been added a sort of drum called Ki li kou, a 
Piece of mechanism which may remind one of some curious pub- 
lic time-pieces still to be seen in old cities of Europe. A drum- 
tar is thus described by a Chinese author: “It had two stories, in 
each of which was a wooden man holding erect a mallet of wood. 
As soon as the car had run one ly,* the wooden man of the lower 
Story struck a blow upon a drum, and a wheel placed at the mid- 
dle of his height made one revolution. After the car had run ten 
lys, the wooden man of the upper story struck a little bell.” 
The magnetic car cannot be traced later than 1609. In that 
year was published a celebrated Encyclopedia, which contains 
the following passage, accompanying a design of the human 
figure which was placed upon the magnetic car: “This is a car 
thament, of which the dimensions are as follows: It is one foot 
and four inches in height, and in breadth at the bottom seven 
Inches and four lines. At the extremity of the axle-tree of the 
‘at Is pierced a round hole of three inches and seven lines in di- 
ameter. In this hole moves a peg of the same size, on which is 
* : . * . . . . . i 
, Measure of distance variously estimated. John Francis Davis, in his History 
of Chi ; 
na, computes thirty Lys in one English mile. 
