USEFUL AMUSEMENT WITH THE POCKET COMPASS.
Pocket compasses are to be bought for from 50 cents to $1, and may be used in many ways. In traveling over mountains or a wide extended plain, they are indispensably necessary, and no one should go on a tour without such a companion; it will be a very useful and amusing exercise for any young person to take the bearings of his own or some particular locality, and make out what may be called a bearing card. This he may easily do in the following manner: Supposing he wishes, for instance, to take the bearings of his own house, he has nothing to do but set his pocket compass upon a map of the district,—a county map will do very well, unless his house stands on the verge of a county, then two county maps will be necessary. He must make the north of the map exactly coincide with the north, as indicated by his compass, and having fixed his map in this situation, he should take a ruler and piece of paper, and dot down the exact bearings of each important town, or place, or village, around him. Let him suppose himself, for instance, in the town of Albany, N. Y., and laying down his map as indicated by the compass, north to north and south to south, he will find the following places due north, Balston Spa; Hudson, south; Schoharie, west. The other points of the compass may be filled up in the same manner. Should, therefore, our young friend be upon any other elevated situation near his own dwelling, or upon any other elevated spot from which the bearings have been taken, he will be able to inform his young friends that such and such a place lies in such a direction, that this place lies due north, the other north-west, a third south-east, the fourth south-west, etc., etc.