Inventio7i of the Mariner^s Compass. 24T 



their course according to the four cardinal points, place a pitcher 

 full of water in the interior of the vessel, 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 prepared 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 withdraw 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, Beilak, 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, Utile green frog, and the Burman appellation for the com- 

 pass, meaning lizard, 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 Beilak describes that which he saw in 1242, in the 

 Syrian waters, and also like that which Jacques de Yitry 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 

 is mentioned, 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- 

 certain the points of north and south. Under the dynasty of the 

 Tsin, (i. e. between 265 and 419,) Chinese vessels were already 



