C 566 ) 
At Cape Comrine in India y in the Year 1620. there 
was 14*' 20' Welt Variation ; in the Year 1680. there 
was 8° 48', but now lately in the Year 1688. it was 
no more than 7 0 30' , fo that here the Needle has 
rem rned to the Eaft about feven degrees in feventy 
Years. 
In all the other Examples the Needle has gradually 
moved towards the Weft, and the places are too far a- 
(under to be influenced by the "removal of any Mag* 
netjeal matter, which may by accident be tranfplaced 
within the Bowels or on the Surface of the Earth. If 
more Examples are defired, the Reader may be furni- 
flied with them ia the Portugueze Routhr of Aleixo de 
Motta (written about the year 1600,) and in the Voy- 
age of Beanlieu, both publifhed in Mr. Thevenot's firfl 
Colleftion of curious Voyages, printed at Park, amo 
1663. which he is to compare with the Journals of 
of our late Eaft India Voyagers, and I am allured that 
it will be thereby evident, that the Direftion of tho 
Needle is in no place fixt and conftant, tho in fome it 
change fatter than in others. And where for a long 
time it has continued as it were unaltered, it is there 
to be underftood that the Needle has its greateft defle- 
ction, and is become Stationary in order to return, 
like the Sun in the Tropick.This at prefent is in the Indi- 
tf/^Sea, about the Ifland Mauritius, where is the high- 
eft Weft Variation, and in a Trad tending from thence 
into the N. N. W. towards the Red Sea and Egypt. And 
in all Places to the Weft ward of this Traft, all over 
Africa and the Seas ad joining, the Weft Variation will 
be found to have encreafed 5 and to the Eaft wards 
thereof, as in the example of Cape Comorine, to have 
decreafed, vi%. all over the Eaft Indies and the Iflands 
near it. 
After the like manner in that Space of Eaft Variation 
which, beginning near St. Helena^ is found altover the 
* South 
