MENTION OF THE COMPASS. 



121 



Which moves not. Very well see it 



The sailors who are on the watch. 



By this star they go and come, 



And hold their course and their way. 



They call it the Polar Star. 



It is fixed, very unchangeable: 



All the others move, 



And alter their places and turn, 



But this star moves not. 



They make a contrivance which cannot lie, 



By the virtue of the magnet. 



An ugly and brownish stone, 



To which iron spontaneously joins itself, 



They have : and they observe the right point, 



After they have caused a needle to touch it, 



And placed it in a rush : 



They put it in the water, without any thing, mere. 

 And the rush keeps it on the surface ; 

 Then it turns its point direct 

 Towards the star with such certainty, 

 That no man will ever have any doubt of it ; 

 Nor will it ever for any thing go false. 

 When the sea is dark and hazy, 

 That they can neither see star nor moon, 

 Then they place a light by the needle, 

 And so they have no fear of going wrong : 

 Towards the star goes the point, 

 * Whereby the mariners have the skill 



To keep the right way. 

 It is an art which cannot fail." 



It may be very properly inferred, from the fact that the 

 poet does not merely allude to the compass, but describes it and 

 the polar star at some length, that it was not generally known, 

 and, in fact, had been lately introduced into the Mediterranean. 

 Whence it had been introduced there, we shall learn as we 

 proceed. 



The second historical mention of the compass occurs in a de- 

 scription of Palestine by Cardinal Jacques de Vitry, in the year 

 1218, in which is the following passage : — " The loadstone is found 

 in India, to which, from some hidden cause, iron spontaneously 

 attaches itself. The moment an iron needle is touched by this 

 stone, it at once points towards the North Star, which, though 

 the other stars revolve, is fixed as if it were the ax"is of the 



