SCIENCE IN EARLY ENGLAND. 737 



St. Albans in 1157, he migrated to France at an early age, and obtained 

 a professorship at Paris in 1180, but in a few years returned to Eng- 

 land. He applied for admission to the great Benedictine Monastery of 

 his native town, bat tradition relates that a jocular reply of the abbot 

 nettled him so much that he joined the Augustinians at Cirencester 

 instead. The reply was as follows: "Si bonus sis, venias; si nequam, 

 nequaquam." "If you are a good man, you may come; if you are a 

 bad one (a ISTeckam), we won't have you at any price." 



He composed a Latin elegiac poem on science in ten books, but his 

 principal work is De Naturis Eerum, which was written before the end 

 of the twelfth century. It includes an account of the creation, and 

 dissertations on the four elements, on astronomy, natural history, and 

 on minerals. The earliest recorded mention of the man in the moon 

 occurs here, though only as a tradition; the marks on its surface are 

 ascribed to caves, hills, and valleys. His remarks on magnetism are 

 worth quoting, as he is the first English writer who mentions this sub- 

 ject. After explaining the hanging of Mahomet's coffin by this means, 

 he continues: "The sailors, moreover, as they sail over the sea, when 

 in cloudy weather they can no longer profit by the light of the sun, 

 and when the world is wrapped up in the darkness of the shades of 

 night, and they are ignorant to what point of the compass their ship's 

 course is directed, they touch the magnet with a needle, which is 

 whirled round until, when its motion ceases, its point looks direct 

 toward the north." In another treatise, De Utilitensibus, also of the 

 twelfty century, he has another mention of the compass, and says that 

 "among the stores of a ship there must be a needle mounted on a pivot, 

 which will oscillate and turn till the point looks toward the north." 

 The pivot is a distinct advance over a needle floating on a straw. In 

 view of the interest attaching to early references to the compass, I may 

 quote the following extracts, given for the sake of reference, in the 

 same volume. Cardinal Jacques de Vitry, Bishop of Aeon, in Pales- 

 tine, in a history of Jerusalem, written about 1218, says: "An iron 

 needle, after having been in contact with the loadstone, turns itself 

 always towards the north, which, like the axis of the firmament, remains 

 immovable, while the others follow their course, so that it is very nec- 

 essary to those who navigate the sea." Again, Guyot de Provence, in 

 a love song of the early part of the thirteenth century has these lines : 



They know its position for their route, 

 When the weather is completely without light, 

 All those who employ this contrivance. 

 Whoever trusts a needle of iron 

 So that it remains almost entirely outside 

 In a bit of cork, and rubs it on the brown loadstone 

 If it be put in a vessel full of water 

 So that nobody push it out. 

 As soon as the water becomes quiet, 

 To whatsoever side tbe point turns 

 There is certainly the polar star. 

 SM 95 47 



