LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
| ST. AUGUSTINE | [Frontispiece] |
|---|---|
| “La Cité de Dieu, translatée et exposée par Raoul de Presles.” Taken from the manuscript in the Musée de Chantilly, by permission of the executors of Monsieur le Duc d’Aumale. | |
| Facing page | |
| CAIUS PLINIUS SECUNDUS | [11] |
| Page taken from the earliest known edition of the “Naturalis Historiae” Venetiis, 1469, of which there are only three known original vellum copies. These now are at Vienna, Ravenna and in the Bibliothèque Sainte Geneviève, Paris. | |
| ARISTOTLE | [11] |
| “De Naturali Auscultatione.” Title-page of the Paris 1542 edition. This belonged to Dr. William Gilberd, when at Cambridge, and is inscribed with his name and with that of Archdeacon Thomas Drant. (From the library of the late Silvanus P. Thompson). | |
| GUIOT DE PROVINS | [30] |
| “La Bible.” Page 93 verso of MS. Fr., No. 25405, Variorum Poëmata, in the Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris. | |
| VINCENT DE BEAUVAIS | [33] |
| “Speculum Naturale.” Page taken from the (Argentorati) 1473 issue, la première édition et la plus rare de toutes. In the Bibliothèque Sainte Geneviève, Paris. | |
| BRUNETTO LATINI | [43] |
| “Li Livres dou Trésor.” Page taken from the XVth Century MS. (originally copied by Jean du Quesne), No. 191, Trésor de Sapience, in the Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris. | |
| DANTE ALIGHIERI | [44] |
| “La Divina Commedia,” Mantuae 1472, the first page of what is by many regarded as the oldest edition of the earliest known poem written in the Italian language. Now in the Bibliothèque Sainte Geneviève, Paris. | |
| PETRUS PEREGRINUS | [46] |
| “Epistola ... de Magnete.” The earliest known treatise of experimental science. Original photographic reproduction of first page of the almost illegible MS. No. 7378 A; page 67 recto (embraced in a geometrical treatise), now in the Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris. | |
| PETRUS PEREGRINUS | [52] |
| Facsimile of Bodleian MS., No. 7027 (MS. Ashmole No. 1522), folio 186 verso, being Chap. II, Part II, of the “Epistola ... de Magnete,” wherein is described the earliest known pivoted compass. | |
| CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS | [Between 64 and 65] |
| Photographic reproduction of his letter, March 21, 1502, to Nicolo Oderigo, Ambassador to France and to Spain, which was acquired by the King of Sardinia and presented by him to the city of Genoa. It is now preserved in the Palace of the Genoese Municipality. | |
| CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS | [Between 64 and 65] |
| Translation of the letter written by him to Nicolo Oderigo, shown here on opposite plate; made into English by Mr. Geo. A. Barwick, B.A., of the British Museum. Permission to copy both the original letter and its translation was given by Messrs. B. F. Stevens and Brown, London. | |
| CECCO D’ASCOLI | [524] |
| Last page of the earliest known edition of his “Acerba,” Venetia, 1476. Printed nineteen times up to and including the edition of 1546. Now in the Bibliothèque Sainte Geneviève, Paris. | |
| LACTANTIUS | [524] |
| “De Divinis Institutionibus.” Page taken from the Sublacensi 1465 edition, called by Joannis Vogt inter rariora typographiae incunabula rarissimum. In the Bibliothèque Sainte Geneviève, Paris. | |
| PEDRO NUÑEZ | [530] |
| “Traitte que le docteur P. Nunes fit sur certaines doubtes de la Navigation.” Page 9 verso of MS. Fr. No. 1338, now in the Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris. |
THE BIBLIOGRAPHICAL HISTORY OF
ELECTRICITY AND MAGNETISM
From b.c. 2637 to a.d. 1821
B.C. 2637.—This date has been conclusively shown to be the earliest one at which history notes anything resembling the application of the magnetic influence. It is related that, during this sixty-first year of the reign of Hoang-ti (Yeou-hioung-che, also named Koung-fun and Hiuen-yuen), the emperor’s troops, who were pursuing the rebellious prince Tchéyeou (Tchi-yeou), lost their way, as well as the course of the wind, and likewise the sight of their enemy, during the heavy fogs prevailing in the plains of Tchou-lou. Seeing which, Hoang-ti constructed a chariot upon which stood erect a prominent female figure which indicated the four cardinal points, and which always turned to the south whatever might be the direction taken by the chariot. Thus he succeeded in capturing the rebellious prince, who was put to death.
Some say that upon this chariot stood a needle, to denote the four parts of the world. That, states the French author writing in 1736, would “indicate the use of the compass, or something very similar to it ... and it is unfortunate that the device has not been explained more fully.”
References.—Du Halde, “Description de la Chine ...,” La Haye, 1736. Vol. I. pp. 270–271; B.C. 2634, Klaproth, “Boussole,” pp. 33, 34, 71, 74, 76, 79, 82; Azuni, “Boussole,” Paris, 1809, pp. 186, 214; Staunton’s “China,” London, 1797, Vol. I. p. 446; “Encycl. Metrop.,” Vol. III. p. 736; Buffon, “La Terre,” Vol. I. p. 304; Davis, “The Chinese,” 1844, Vol. III. p. 14; Humboldt, “Cosmos,” 1848, Vol. V. p. 51, for Ed. Biot in Comptes Rendus, Vol. XIX. 1844, p. 822; Dr. A. T. Thompson, translation of Salverte’s “Philosophy of Magic,” 1847, Vol. II. chap. xi. p. 222 (note), wherein he alludes to Davies’ “Early History of the Mariner’s Compass”; “British Annual,” 1837; Saillant et Nyon, “Mémoires concernant l’Histoire,” Paris, 1788, Vol. XIII. pp. 234–235, giving chronological tables of the history of China, also p. 227 relative to Hoang-ti; P. Etienne Souciet, “Observations,” Paris, 1732, Vol. II. pp. 94–95.
Hoang-ti (Hoang, supreme king), third in the “Period of the Five Emperors” (Claude Augé, “Nouveau Larousse,” Vol. V. p. 134), regarded as the founder of the Chinese Empire, died at the age of 121, after reigning 100 years, B.C. 2598. Mailla (Joseph A. M. de Moyriac de) in his “Histoire ... traduite du Thoung-Kian-Kang-Mou,” Paris, 1777, Vol. I. p. 28, makes the latter date 2599, as do likewise, Dr. Hœfer (“Nouvelle Biographie Générale,” Paris, 1858, Vol. XXIV. pp. 817–819) and Pierre Larousse (“Grand Dict, du XIXe Siècle,” 1873, Vol. IX. p. 317), but Michaud (“Biogr. Univer.,” 1857, Vol. XIX. pp. 476–477) says he reigned from 2698 to 2577 B.C., and, in “La Grande Encyclop.,” Vol. XX. pp. 157–158, we are told that the correct period is 2697–2597 B.C. (“L’art de vérifier les dates,” Paris, 1819, Vol. IV. p. 8).
The above-named work of Jean Baptiste Du Halde on China is considered the most complete account of that vast empire that has appeared in Europe (“New Gen. Biogr. Dict.,” London, 1850, Vol. VIII. p. 175). In any case, remarks Mr. Demetrius C. Boulger (“History of China,” London, 1881, Vol. I. pp. 4–5), it is incontestable that the individuality of Hoang-ti, who was the successor of “Fo-hi,” the first great Chinese emperor, is much more tangible than that of any of his predecessors.[1] By him, it is well recorded that the extensive Chinese territory (Empire) was divided into ten provinces, or Chow, each of which was subdivided into ten departments, or Tsee, and these again into ten districts, or Tou, each of them containing ten towns, or Ye.
B.C. 1110.—Tcheou-Koung is said to have at this date taught the use of the needle compass to the envoys from Youa-tchang. “As the ambassadors sent from Cochin China and Tonquin” (Humboldt, “Cosmos” Vol. V. p. 51) “were about to take their departure” (which was in the twenty-second cycle, more than 1040 years B.C.), “Tcheou-Koung gave them an instrument which upon one side always turned toward the north and on the opposite side to the south, the better to direct them upon their homeward voyage.[2] This instrument was called tchi-nan (chariot of the south), and it is still the name given to the compass, which leads to the belief that Tcheou-Koung invented the latter.” In his chapter on “The Magnetic Needle,” Humboldt says the apparatus was called fse-nan (indicator of the south).
Tcheou-Koung (Ki-tan) was Chinese Minister of State under both Von-Vang (the first emperor of the Tcheou dynasty, who ruled seven years) and Tsching-Vang (second emperor, who ruled thirty-seven years), and lived to be 100 years old. He was one of the most learned and most popular men China has ever known, and is spoken of to this day by the Chinese “with an admiration bordering upon enthusiasm” (Saillant et Nyon, “Mémoires concernant l’Histoire,” Paris, 1776, Vol. III. p. 37). The emperor Tsching-Vang caused Tcheou-Koung’s body to be interred near his father’s remains, after giving it imperial funeral honours.
References.—Du Halde, “Description de la Chine ...,” La Haye, 1736, Vol. I. p. 312; Klaproth, “Boussole,” p. 81; Azuni, “Boussole,” pp. 190–191; Humboldt, “Cosmos,” London, 1849, Vol. II. p. 628, and Vol. V. p. 52.
B.C. 1084.—According to Æschylus, the father of the Athenian drama, Agamemnon employed a line of optical signals to advise his queen Clytemnestra of the fall of Troy. Robert Browning’s translation, London, 1877, runs as follows:
“Troia, the Achaioi hold....
Hephaistos—sending a bright blaze from Idé
Beacon did beacon send, from fire the poster,
Hitherward: Idé to the rock Hermaian
Of Lemnos: and a third great torch o’ the island
Zeus’ seat received in turn, the Athoan summit.
And—so upsoaring as to stride sea over,
The strong lamp-voyager, and all for joyance—
Did the gold-glorious splendor, any sun like,
Pass on....”
Anna Swanwick thus renders Æschylus’ “Agamemnon,” London, 1881, p. 13:
“For Priam’s city have the Argives won.
*****
Hephaestos sending forth Idaian fire.
Hither through swift relays of courier flame....”
At page 193 of his “Agamemnon,” London, 1873, E. H. Plumptre refers to the system of posts or messengers which the Persian kings seem to have been first to organize, and which impressed the minds of both the Hebrews (Esther viii. 14) and the Greeks (Herod., viii. 98) by their regular transmission of the king’s edicts or of special news.
What of the passage from the celebrated patriarch Job (xxxviii. 35): “Canst thou send lightnings, that they may go, and say unto thee, ‘Here we are?’” (original Hebrew, “Behold us”). As has been remarked, this seems prophetic, when taken in connection with the electric telegraph.
The fire beacons are also alluded to by Plutarch in his Life of Quintus Sertorius; and Mardonius prepared fire signals to notify Xerxes, then at Sardis, of the second taking of Athens.
References.—“Le Théâtre des Grecs,” P. Brumoy, Paris, 1820, Vol. II. pp. 124–125; “Penny Encyc.,” Vol. XXIV. p. 145; Knight’s “Mechan. Dict.,” Vol. III. p. 2092.
For a decidedly original explanation of the beacon fires, read the introduction to “The Agamemnon of Æschylus,” translated by A. W. Verrall, Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge, England. See, likewise, reference to Act of Scottish Parliament, 1455, c. 48, made by Walter Scott in a note to his “Lay of the Last Minstrel”; “Archeologia,” London, 1770, Vol. I. pp. i-7.
B.C. 1068.—In the obscure age of Codrus, the seventeenth and last king of Athens, at about the period of the “Return of the Heraclidae” (descendants of Heracles—Hercules) to the Peloponnesus, the Chinese had magnetic carriages, upon which the movable arm of the figure of a man continually pointed to the south, and which it is said served as a guide by which to find the way across the boundless grass plains of Tartary. Humboldt states, besides, that, even in the third century of our era, Chinese vessels navigated the Indian Ocean under the direction of magnetic needles pointing to the south, and that, at pages xxxviii-xlii, Vol. I. of his “Asie Centrale,” he has shown what advantages this means of topographical direction, as well as the early knowledge and application of the magnetic needle, gave the Chinese geographers over the Greeks and Romans, to whom, for instance, even the true direction of the Pyrenees and the Apennines always remained unknown.
References.—Humboldt, “Cosmos,” London, 1849, Vol. I. p. 173, also his “Examen Critique de l’histoire de la Géographie,” Vol. III. p. 36; “Mœurs de Reg. Athen.,” lib. iii. cap. xi. For Codrus and the Heraclidæ, consult: Chambers’ “Encycl.,” 1889, Vol. III. p. 329 and Vol. V. 1890, p. 657; “Encycl. Britan.,” 9th ed., Edinburgh, Vol. VI. p. 107 and Vol. XI. p. 92; Hœfer, “Nouv. Biog. Gén.,” Vol. XI. p. 29.
B.C. 1033–975.—Solomon, King of Israel, son of King David and of Bathsheba, who, “in the Jewish scriptures, has the first place assigned to him among the wise men of the East,” is believed by many to have known the use of the compass. The Spanish Jesuit Pineda and Athanasius Kircher assert the same, and state that Solomon’s subjects employed it in their navigations. Others, notably Fuller, “Miscel.,” iv. cap. 19, and Levinus Lemnius, “De Occulta Naturae Miracula,” lib. iii, have even tried to prove that Solomon was the inventor of the compass, and that it was in his time used by the Syrians, Sidonians and Phœnicians, but the contrary has been shown by Henricus Kippingius in his “Antiq. Rom. de exped. Mar.,” lib. iii. cap. 6, as well as by Bochart, the geographer, in his “Géo. Sacr.,” lib. i. cap. 38.
References.—Venanson, “Boussole,” Naples, 1808, p. 34; Enfield, “History of Philosophy,” London, 1819, Vol. I. p. 40; Cavallo, “Magnetism,” 1787, p. 48; Ronalds’ “Catal.,” 1880, articles “Hirt” and “Michaelis,” pp. 246, 344.
B.C. 1022.—At this period the Chinese magnetic cars held a floating needle, the motions of which were communicated to the figure of a spirit whose outstretched hand always indicated the south. An account of these cars is given in the “Szuki” (Shi-ki), or “Historical Memoirs of Szu-ma-thsian” (Szu-matsien), which were written early in the second century B.C., and are justly considered the greatest of all Chinese historical works, containing, as they do, the history of China from the beginning of the empire to the reign of Hiao-wou-ti, of the Han dynasty.
References.—“Les peuples Orientaux,” Léon de Rosny, Paris, 1886, pp. 10, 168, 240; Johnson’s “Encyclopædia,” Vol. I. p. 929; Humboldt, “Cosmos,” Vol. II. 1849, p. 628; Klaproth, “Boussole,” 1834, p. 79, for further allusion to a passage in the Thoung-Kian-Kang-Mou, already referred to under date B.C. 2637.
B.C. 1000–907.—Homer, the greatest of epic poets, called the father of Greek poetry, and who, according to Enfield (“History of Philosophy,” Vol. I. p. 133), flourished before any other poet whose writings are extant, relates that the loadstone was used by the Greeks to direct navigation at the time of the siege of Troy.
The latter construction has been placed upon several passages in Homer, the most important being found in Book VIII of the “Odyssey.”
As this appears to be the first attributed allusion to the compass, it is deemed worth while to give herein several interpretations of the original Greek. The selections made are as follows:
“In wond’rous ships, self-mov’d, instinct with mind;
No helm secures their course, no pilot guides;
Like man intelligent, they plough the tides.
*****
Though clouds and darkness veil th’ encumber’d sky,
Fearless thro’ darkness and thro’ clouds they fly.”
Alexander Pope, “The Odyssey of Homer,” London, 1818, p. 135.
“...; for here
In our Phæacian ships no pilots are,
Nor rudders, as in ships of other lands.
Ours know the thoughts and the intents of men.
To them all cities and all fertile coasts
Inhabited by men are known; they cross
The great sea scudding fast, involved in mist
And darkness, with no fear of perishing
Or meeting harm.”
Wm. Cullen Bryant, “The Odyssey of Homer,” Boston, 1875, Vol. I. p. 174.
“For unto us no pilots appertain,
Rudder nor helm which other barks obey.
These ruled by reason, their own course essay
Sparing men’s mind ...
Sail in a fearless scorn of scathe or overthrow.”
Philip Stanhope Worsley, “The Odyssey of Homer,” London, 1861, Vol. I. p. 198.
“For all unlike the ships of other men,
Nor helm nor steersman have our country’s barks,
But of themselves they know the thoughts of men;
... and wrapped in gloom and mist
O’er the broad ocean gulfs they hold their course
Fearless of loss and shipwreck....”
Earl of Carnarvon, “The Odyssey of Homer,” London, 1886, p. 201.
“These marvellous ships, endued with human sense, and anticipating the will of their masters, flit unseen over the sea.”—“Homer’s Odyssey,” by W. W. Merry and James Riddell, Oxford, 1886, Vol. I. p. 353, note.
“That our ships in their minds may know it when they bring thee hither to hand,
Because amidst us Phæacians, our ships no helmsmen steer,
Nor with us is any rudder like other ships must bear,
But our keels know the minds of menfolk, and their will they understand,
*****
And therewith exceeding swiftly over the sea-gulf do they go,
In the mist and the cloud-rack hidden....”
“The Odyssey of Homer,” translated by Wm. Morris, London, 1887, p. 145.
The afore-named construction is not, however, alluded to by Matthew Arnold in his well-known lectures given at Oxford, nor by the Right Hon. Wm. Ewart Gladstone either in his “Juventus Mundi” or throughout his very extensive “Studies on Homer and the Homeric Age.”
Sonnini tells us that as this period is about the same as that of the Chinese chronicles, it can scarcely be doubted that the knowledge of both the polarity of the needle and of the use of the compass for navigation date back 3000 years (Buffon, “Terre,” Paris, An. VIII. p. 304).
This ill accords, however, with the views of others who have concluded, perhaps rightly, that the Greeks, Romans, Tuscans and Phœnicians[3] were ignorant of the directive property of the magnet, from the fact that none of the writings, more especially of Theophrastus, Plato, Aristotle, Lucretius and Pliny, make explicit allusion thereto.
References.—Humboldt, “Cosmos,” 1859, Vol. V. p. 51; “Good Words,” 1874, p. 70; Brumoy, “Théâtre des Grecs,” 1820, Vol. I. p. 55; Pope’s translation of the “Iliad,” 1738, Vol. I. pp. 14, 20; Schaffner, “Telegraph Manual,” p. 19; also references under both the A.D. 121 and the A.D. 265–419 dates.
B.C. 600–580.—Thales of Miletus, Ionia, one of the “seven wise men of Greece” (the others being Solon, Chilo, Pittacus, Bias, Cleobolus and Periander), founder of the Ionic philosophy, and from whose school came Socrates, is said to have been the first to observe the electricity developed by friction in amber.
Thales, Theophrastus, Solinus, Priscian and Pliny, as well as other writers, Greek and Roman, mention the fact that when a vivifying heat is applied to amber it will attract straws, dried leaves, and other light bodies in the same way that a magnet attracts iron (“Photii Bibliotheca” Rothomagi, 1653, folio, col. 1040–1041, cod. 242).
Robert Boyle (“Philosophical Works,” London, 1738, Vol. I. p. 506, or London, 1744, Vol. III. p. 647) treats of different hypotheses advanced to solve the phenomena of electrical attraction, saying: “The first is that of the learned Nicholas Cabaeus (A.D. 1629), who thinks the drawing of light bodies by amber ... is caused by the steams which issue out of such bodies and discuss and expel the neighbouring air ... making small whirlwind.... Another is that of the eminent English philosopher, Sir Kenelm Digby (A.D. 1644), and embraced by the very learned Dr. Browne (A.D. 1646) and others, who believed that ... chafed amber is made to emit certain rays of unctuous steams, which, when they come to be a little cooled by the external air, are somewhat condensed ... carrying back with them those light bodies to which they happen to adhere at the time of their retraction.... Pierre Gassendi (A.D. 1632) thinks the same, and adds that these electrical rays ... get into the pores of a straw ... and by means of their decussation take the faster hold of it ... when they shrink back to the amber whence they were emitted ... Cartesius (Descartes, A.D. 1644) accounts for electrical attractions by the intervention of certain particles, shaped almost like small pieces of riband, which he supposes to be formed of this subtile matter harboured in the pores or crevices of glass.”
The ancients were acquainted with but two electrical bodies—amber (electron), which has given the denomination of the science; and lyncurium, which is either the tourmaline or the topaz (Dr. Davy, “Mem. Sir Humphry Davy,” 1836, Vol. I. p. 309). From a recent article treating of gems, the following is extracted: “The name of the precious stone inserted in the ring of Gyges has not been handed down to us, but it is probable that it was the topaz, whose wonders Philostratus recounts in the Life of Apollonius. An attribute of the sun and of fire, the ancients called it the gold magnet, as it was credited with the power of attracting that metal, indicating its veins, and discovering treasures. Heliodorus, in his story of Theagenes and Caricles, says that the topaz saves from fire all those who wear it, and that Caricles was preserved by a topaz from the fiery vengeance of Arsaces, Queen of Ethiopia. This stone was one of the first talismans that Theagenes possessed in Egypt. The topaz, at present, symbolizes Christian virtues—faith, justice, temperance, gentleness, clemency.”
References.—“Greek Thinkers,” by Theodor Gomperz, translation of L. Magnus, London 1901, p. 532; Zahn at A.D. 1696; Joannes Ruellius, “De Natura Stirpium,” 1536, p. 125; Paul Tannery, “Pour l’Histoire de la Science Hellène,” Paris, 1887, chap. iii. pp. 52–80; Becquerel, “Traité Expérimental,” Paris, 1834, Vol. I. p. 33; Pliny, “Natural History,” Bostock and Riley, 1858, book 37, chap. xii. p. 403; Pline, “Histoire Naturelle,” 1778, livre 37, chapitre iii.; Lardner, “Lectures,” 1859, Vol. I. p. 104; Humboldt, “Cosmos,” 1849, Vol. I. p. 182; Poggendorff, XI. p. 1088; Apuleius, Floridor, p. 361; Plato; Timæus, The Locrian; “De Anima Mundi ...,” 12, 15; Pauli (Adrian), Dantzig, 1614; Ulysses Aldrovandus, “Musaeum Metallicum,” pp. 411–412; Aurifabrum (Andreas), “Succini Historia,” ... Königsberg, 1551–1561; and, for the different names given to amber and the magnet by the ancients, consult, more especially, the numerous authorities cited by M. Th. Henri Martin (“Mém. présenté à l’Académie des Inscrip. et Belles Lettres,” première partie, Vol. VI. pp. 297–329, 391–411, Paris, 1860); J. Matthias Gessner, “De Electro Veterum” (Com. Soc. Reg. Sc. Gött., Vol. III for 1753, p. 67); Louis Delaunay, “Minér. des Anciens,” Part 2, p. 125 (Poggendorff, Vol. II. p. 540); Philip Jacob Hartmann, in Phil. Trans., Vol. XXI. No. 248, pp. 5, 49, also in Baddam’s Abridgments, Vol. III, first edition, 1739, pp. 322–366.
B.C. 600.—The Etruscans are known to have devoted themselves at this period to the study of electricity in an especial manner.[4] They are said to have attracted lightning by shooting arrows of metal into clouds which threatened thunder. Pliny even asserts that they had a secret method of not only “drawing it (the lightning) down” from the clouds, but of afterwards “turning it aside” in any desired direction. They recognized different sources of lightning, those coming from the sky (a sideribus venientia), which always struck obliquely, and others from the earth (infera, terrena), which rose perpendicularly. The Romans, on the other hand, recognized only two sorts, those of the day, attributed to Jupiter, and those of the night, attributed to Summanus (see Vassalli-Eandi at A.D. 1790).
This Vassalli-Eandi—like L. Fromondi—made special study of the very extensive scientific knowledge displayed by the ancients and, as shown in his “Conghietture ...” he concluded that they really possessed the secret of attracting and directing lightning. The above-named extracts concerning the Etruscans and Romans are made from the subjoined work of Mme. Blavatsky, wherein the following is likewise given.
Tradition says that Numa Pompilius, the second king of Rome, was initiated by the priests of the Etruscan divinities, and instructed by them in the secret of forcing Jupiter, the Thunderer, to descend upon earth. Salverte believes that before Franklin discovered his refined electricity, Numa had experimented with it most successfully, and that Tullus Hostilius, the successor of Numa, was the first victim of the dangerous “heavenly guest” recorded in history. Salverte remarks that Pliny makes use of expressions which seem to indicate two distinct processes; the one obtained thunder (impetrare), the other forced it to lightning (cogere). Tracing back the knowledge of thunder and lightning possessed by the Etruscan priests, we find that Tarchon, the founder of the theurgism of the former, desiring to preserve his house from lightning, surrounded it by a hedge of the white bryony, a climbing plant which has the property of averting thunderbolts. The Temple of Juno had its roofs covered with numerous pointed blades of swords. Ben David, says the author of “Occult Sciences,” has asserted that Moses (born about 1570 B.C.) possessed some knowledge of the phenomena of electricity. Prof. Hirt, of Berlin, is of this opinion. Michaelis remarks that there is no indication that lightning ever struck the Temple of Jerusalem during a thousand years: that, according to Josephus, a forest of points, of gold and very sharp, covered the roof of the temple, and that this roof communicated with the caverns in the hill by means of pipes in connection with the gilding which covered all the exterior of the building, in consequence of which the points would act as conductors. Salverte further asserts that in the days of Ctesias—Ktesias—India was acquainted with the use of conductors of lightning. This historian plainly states that iron placed at the bottom of a fountain, and made in the form of a sword, with the point upward, possessed, as soon as it was thus fixed in the ground, the property of averting storms and lightning.
“Ancient India, as described by Ktesias, the Knidian,” J. H. McCrindle, London, 1882, alludes, p. 68, to iron swords employed to ward off lightning. Reference is made to the pantarbe at pp. 7–8, 69–70, and to the elektron (amber) at pp. 20, 21, 23, 51, 52, 70, 86. See account of Ktesias in “Nouvelle Biogr. Génér.,” Vol. XII. pp. 568–571, and in “Larousse Dict.,” Vol. V. p. 614.
In his “Observations sur la Physique,” Vols. XXIV. pp. 321–323, XXV. pp. 297–303, XXVI. pp. 101–107, M. l’Abbé Rosier gives the correspondence between M. de Michaelis, Professor at Göttingen, and Mr. Lichtenberg, showing conclusively how the numerous points distributed over the surface of the roof of the Temple of Solomon effectively served as lightning conductors. Mr. Lichtenberg in addition shows that the bell tower located upon a hill at the country seat of Count Orsini de Rosenberg, was, during a period of several years, so repeatedly struck by lightning, with great loss of life, that divine service had to be suspended in the church. The tower was entirely destroyed in 1730 and soon after rebuilt, but it was struck as often as ten times during one prolonged storm, until finally a fifth successive attack, during the year 1778, compelled its demolition. For the third time the tower was reconstructed, and the Count placed a pointed conductor, since which time no damage has been sustained.
References.—Mme. Blavatsky, “Isis Unveiled,” 1877, Vol. I. pp. 142, 457, 458, 527, 528, and her references to Ovid, “Fast,” lib. iii. v. 285–346; Titus Livius, lib. i. cap. 31; Pliny, “Hist. Nat.,” lib. ii. cap. 53 and lib. xxviii. cap. 2; Lucius Calp, Piso; Columella, lib. x. v. 346, etc.; La Boissière, “Notice sur les Travaux de l’Académie du Gard,” part I. pp. 304–314; “Bell. Jud. adv. Roman,” lib. v. cap. 14; “Magas. Sc. de Göttingen,” 3e année 5e cahier; Ktesias, in “India ap. Photum. Bibl. Cod.,” 72. See also, De La Rive, “Electricity,” London, 1858, Vol. III, chap. ii. p. 90; “Encycl. Brit.,” 8th ed., article “Electricity”; Lardner, “Lectures,” II. p. 99; Humboldt, “Cosmos,” 1849, Vol. II. pp. 502–504; Boccalini, “Parnassus,” Century I. chap. xlvi. alluded to at p. 24, Vol. I. of Miller’s “Retrospect”; Gouget, “Origin of Laws,” Vol. III. book 3; Themistius, Oratio 27, p. 337; “Agathias Myrenaeus de rebus gestis Justiniani,” lib. v. p. 151; Dutens, “Origine des découvertes ...”; “Gentleman’s Magazine” for July 1785, p. 522; Falconer, “Mem. of Lit. and Phil. Soc. of Manchester,” Vol III. p. 278; “Sc. Amer.,” No. 7. p. 99; E. Salverte, “Phil. of Magic,” 1847, Vol. II. chaps. viii. and ix.; “Fraser’s Magazine” for 1839; H. Martin, Paris, 1865–6; P. F. von Dietrich, Berlin, 1784.
Caius Plinius Secundus. Page taken from earliest known edition of the Naturalis Historiae Venetiis 1469, of which there are only three known original vellum copies. These are now at Vienna, Ravenna and in the Bibliothèque Sainte Geneviève, Paris.
Title page of Aristotle’s “De Naturali Auscultatione,” Paris 1542. The property of Dr. William Gilberd, when at Cambridge, inscribed with his name and that of Archdeacon Thomas Drant. (From the Library of Dr. Silvanus. P. Thompson.)
B.C. 588.—The earliest reliable record of messages transmitted by the sign of fire is to be found in the book of Jeremiah, vi. 1: “O ye children of Benjamin, gather yourselves to flee out of the midst of Jerusalem, and blow the trumpet in Tekoa, and set up a sign of fire in Beth-haccerem; for evil appeareth out of the north and great destruction.”
References.—Turnbull, “Electro-magnetic Telegraph,” 1853, p. 17; Knight’s “Mech. Dict.,” Vol. III. p. 2092; Penny and other Encyclopædias.
B.C. 341.—Aristotle, Greek philosopher, says (“Hist. of Anim.,” IX. 37) that the electrical torpedo causes or produces a torpor upon those fishes it is about to seize, and, having by that means got them into its mouth, feeds upon them. The torpedo is likewise alluded to, notably by (Claudius) Plutarch, the celebrated Greek moralist, by Dioscorides, Pedacius, Greek botanist, referred to in Gilbert’s “De Magnete,” Book I. chaps. i, ii, and xiv; by Galen, illustrious Roman physician, who is also frequently alluded to in “De Magnete,” and by Claudius Claudian, Latin poet, who flourished at the commencement of the fifth century. Oppian describes (“Oppian’s Halieuticks of the nature of fishes and fishing of the ancients in five books,” lib. ii. v. 56, etc., also lib. iii. v. 149) the organs by which the animal produces the above effect, and Pliny (“Nat. Hist.,” Book 32, chap. i) says: “This fish, if touched by a rod or spear, at a distance paralyzes the strongest muscles, and binds and arrests the feet, however swift.”
“The very crampe-fish tarped, knoweth her owne force and power, and being herself not benummed, is able to astonish others” (Holland “Plinie,” Book IX. chap. xlii.).
“We, here, and in no other place, met with that extraordinary fish called the torpedo, or numbing fish, which is in shape very like the fiddle fish, and is not to be known from it but by a brown circular spot about the bigness of a crown-piece near the centre of its back” (Ausonius, “Voyages,” Book II. chap. xii.).
References.—“Encycl. Metr.,” IV. p. 41; “Encycl. Brit.,” article “Electricity”; Jos. Wm. Moss, “A Manual of Classical Biography,” London, 1837, Vol. I. pp. 105–186, for all the Aristotle’s treatises, also Commentaries and Translations; Jourdain (Charles et Amable), “Recherches ... traductions latines d’Aristotle,” Paris, 1843; Fahie, “Hist. of Elec. Teleg.,” p. 170; “Sci. Amer.,” No. 457, pp. 7301, 7302; “Aristotle,” by Geo. Grote, London, 1872; Humboldt, “Cosmos,” 1859–1860, Vols. I and II passim, Vol. III. pp. 13–15, 29–30, 124; “Journal des Savants,” for Feb. 1861, March and May 1872, also for Feb., May and Sept. 1893.
Aristotle is alluded to in Gilbert’s “De Magnete,” at Book I. chaps. i. ii. vii. xv. xvi. xvii.; Book II. chaps. i.[5] iii. iv.; Book V. chap. xii.; Book VI, chaps. iii. v. vi.
B.C. 341.—Æneas, the tactician, believed to be the same Æneas of Stymphale alluded to by Xenophon, invented a singular method of telegraphing phrases commonly used, especially in war. These were written upon exactly similar oblong boards placed at the dispatching and receiving stations, where they stood upon floats in vessels of water. At a given signal the water was allowed to flow out of the vessel at each station, and, when the desired phrase on the board had reached the level of the vessel, another signal was made so that the outflow could be stopped and the desired signal read at the receiving station.
References.—Laurencin, “Le Télégraphe,” Chap. I; “Penny Encycl.,” Vol. XXIV. p. 145; “Michaud Bio.,” Paris, 1855, Vol. XII. pp. 459–460.
B.C. 337–330.—From the well-known work by Mme. Blavatsky (“Isis Unveiled,” New York, 1877) the following curious extracts are made regarding “The Ether or Astral Light” (Vol. I. chap. v. pp. 125–162):
“There has been an infinite confusion of names to express one and the same thing, amongst others, the Hermes-fire, the lightning of Cybelè, the nerve-aura and the fluid of the magnetists, the od of Reichenbach, the fire-globe, or meteor-cat of Babinet, the physic force of Sergeant Cox and Mr. Crookes, the atmospheric magnetism of some naturalists, galvanism, and finally, electricity, which are but various names for many different manifestations or effects of the same all-pervading causes—the Greek Archeus....” Only in connection with these discoveries (Edison’s Force and Graham Bell’s Telephone, which may unsettle, if not utterly upset all our ideas of the imponderable fluids) we may perhaps well remind our readers of the many hints to be found in the ancient histories as to a certain secret in the possession of the Egyptian priesthood, who could instantly communicate, during the celebration of the Mysteries, from one temple to another, even though the former were at Thebes and the latter at the other end of the country; the legends attributing it, as a matter of course, to the “invisible tribes” of the air which carry messages for mortals. The author of “Pre-Adamite Man” (P. B. Randolph, at p. 48) quotes an instance, which, being merely given on his own authority, and he seeming uncertain whether the story comes from Macrinus or some other writer, may be taken for what it is worth. He found good evidence, he says, during his stay in Egypt, that one of the Cleopatras actually sent news by a wire to all of the cities from Heliopolis (the magnificent chief seat of sun-worship) to the island of Elephantine, on the Upper Nile.
Further on, Mme. Blavatsky thus alludes to the loadstone:
“The stone magnet is believed by many to owe its name to Magnesia....” We consider, however, the opinion of the Hermetists to be the correct one. The word magh, magus, is derived from the Sanscrit mahaji, meaning the great or wise ... so the magnet stone was called in honour of the Magi, who were the first to discover its wonderful properties. Their places of worship were located throughout the country in all directions, and among these were some temples of Hercules, hence the stone—when it became known that the priests used it for their curative and magical purposes—received the name of Magnesian or Herculean stone. Socrates, speaking of it, says: “Euripides calls it the Magnesian stone, but the common people the Herculean” (Plato, “Ion”—Burgess—Vol. IV. p. 294). In the same Vol. I. of “Isis Unveiled” we are likewise informed that Electricity in the Norse legends is personated by Thor, the son of Odin, at Samothrace by the Kabeirian Demeter (Joseph Ennemoser, “History of Magic,” London, 1854, Vol. II.; J. S. C. Schweigger, “Introd. to Mythol. through Nat Hist.,” Halle, 1836), and that it is denoted by the “twin brothers,” the Dioskuri. Also that the celestial, pure fire of the Pagan altar was electrically drawn from the astral light, that magnetic currents develop themselves into electricity upon their exit from the body, and that the first inhabitants of the earth brought down the heavenly fire to their altars (J. S. C. Schweigger in Ennemoser’s “Hist. of Magic,” Vol. II. p. 30; Maurus Honoratus Servius, “Virgil,” Eclog. VI. v. 42).
B.C. 321.—Theophrastus, Greek philosopher, first observed the attractive property of the lyncurium, supposed by many to be the tourmaline, and gave a description of it in his treatise upon stones (“De Lapidibus,” sec. 53; or the translation of Sir John Hill, 1774, chap. xlix.-l., p. 123). This crystal was termed lapis lyncurius by Pliny in his “Nat. Hist.,” and lapis electricus by Linnæus in his “Flora Zeylanica” (U. Aldrovandus, “Mus. Metal.”; Philemon Holland, “The Historie of the World,” commonly called “The Naturall Historie of C. Plinius Secundus,” London, 1601).
Theophrastus and Pliny speak of this native magnet as possessing, like amber, the property of attracting straw, dried leaves, bark and other light bodies. The different sorts of loadstones, of which the best were blue in colour (as stated by Taisnier, Porta, Barthol. de Glanville and others), are thus alluded to by Pliny (“Nat. Hist.,” lib. xxxvi. cap. 16): “Sotacus describes five kinds: the Æthiopian; that of Magnesia, a country which borders on Macedonia; a third from Hyettus, in Boetia; a fourth from Alexandria, in Troas; and a fifth from Magnesia, in Asia” (Porta, “Natural Magick,” Book VII. chap. i.). He further says that iron cannot resist it; “the moment the metal approaches it, it springs toward the magnet, and, as it clasps it, is held fast in the magnet’s embrace.” It is by many called ferrum vivum, or quick iron.[6]
Claudian speaks of it as “a stone which is preferred to all that is most precious in the East.... Iron gives it life and nourishes it” (Claudian, Idyl V; Ennemoser, “Hist. of Magic,” Vol. II. p. 27).
Hippocrates, the father of medical science, calls it “the stone which carries away iron.”
Epicurus, an Athenian of the Ægean tribe, says: “The loadstone or magnet attracts iron, because the particles which are continually flowing from it, as from all bodies, have such a peculiar fitness in form to those which flow from iron that, upon collision, they easily unite.... The mutual attraction of amber and like bodies may be explained in the same manner.”
Hier. Cardan intimates that “it is a certain appetite or desire of nutriment that makes the loadstone snatch the iron....” (“De Subtilitate,” Basileæ, 1611, lib. vii. p. 381).
Diogenes of Apollonia (lib. ii. “Nat. Quæst.,” cap. xxiii.) says that “there is humidity in iron which the dryness of the magnet feeds upon.”
Cornelius Gemma supposed invisible lines to stretch from the magnet to the attracted body, a conception which, says Prof. Tyndall, reminds us of Faraday’s lines of force.
Lucretius accounts for the adhesion of the steel to the loadstone by saying that on the surface of the magnet there are hooks, and, on the surface of the steel, little rings which the hooks catch hold of.
Thales, Aristotle, Anaxagoras of Clazomenæ and the Greek sophist Hippias, ascribe the loadstone’s attractive virtue to the soul with which they say it is endowed. Humboldt (“Cosmos,” article on the Magnetic Needle) says soul signifies here “the inner principle of the moving agent,” and he adds in a footnote: “Aristotle (“De Anima,” I. 2) speaks only of the animation of the magnet as of an opinion that originated with Thales.” Diogenes Laertius interprets this statement as applying also distinctly to amber, for he says: “Aristotle and Hippias maintain as to the doctrine enounced by Thales.”
The native magnet appears to have long been known in nearly every quarter of the globe (Humboldt, “Cosmos,” 1848, Vol. V., and Harris, “Rudimentary Magnetism,” Parts I and II).
In the Talmud, it is called achzhàb’th, the stone which attracts; in the Aztec, tlaihiomani tetl, the stone that draws by its breath; in the Sanscrit, ayaskânta, loving toward iron; in the Siamese, me-lek, that which attracts iron; in the Chinese, thsu-chy, love stone, also hy-thy-chy, stone that snatches up iron; in the French, l’aimant, and in the Spanish, iman, loving stone; in the Hungarian, magnet kö, love stone; while in the Greek it is called siderites, owing to its resemblance to iron.
For lyncurium of the ancients see Phil. Trans., Vol. LI. p. 394, and Hutton’s “Abridgments,” Vol. XI. p. 419.
Euripides (“Fragmenta Euripidis,” Didot edit., 1846, p. 757) called it lapis herculaneus, from its power over iron, and it was also known as lapis heracleus, doubtless because the best was, at one time, said to be found near Heraclea in Lydia (Plato, “Ion”—Burgess—Vol. IV. p. 294; see, besides, Blavatsky, “Isis Unveiled,” Vol. I. p. 130; Hervart (J. F.), Ingolstadii, 1623).
It has likewise been designated as follows: Chinese, tchu-chy, directing stone; Icelandic, leiderstein, leading stone; Swedish, segel-sten, seeing stone; Tonkinin, d’ànamtchûm, stone which shows the south; and, by reason of its great hardness, the Greeks called it calamita; the Italians calamita; the French calamite, also diamant; the Hebrews khalamish or kalmithath, and the Romans adamas, while adamant was the name given to the magnetic needle (compass) by the English of the time of Edward III (T. H. H. Martin, “De l’aimant, de ses noms divers et de ses variétés,” Paris, 1861; Buttmann, “Bemerkungen ... des Magnetes und des Basaltes,” 1808, Band II.; G. A. Palm, “Der Magnet in Alterthum,” 1867).[7]
“This stone adamas is dyuers and other than an Magnas, for yf an adamas be sette by yren it suffryth not the yren come to the magnas, but drawyth it by a manere of vyolence fro the magnas” (Trevisa, “Barth, de Prop, reb.,” XVI. 8).[8]
“The adamant cannot draw yron if the diamond lye by it” (Lyly, “Euphues,” sig. K. p. 10).
“Right as an adamound, iwys, can drawen to hym sotylly the yren” (“Rom. Rose”).
“In Ynde groweth the admont stone ... she by her nature draweth to her yron” (Caxton, “Myrrour,” II. vii. 79).
“The adamant placed neare any iron will suffer it to be drawen away of the lode stone” (Maplet, “Greene Forest,” I.).
“You draw me, you hard-hearted adamant; but yet you draw not iron; for my heart is true as steel” (Shakespeare, “Midsum. Night’s Dream,” Act. ii. sc. 1).
“As sun to day, as turtle to her mate, as iron to adamant” (Shakespeare, “Troilus and Cressida,” Act iii. sc. 2).
“The grace of God’s spirit, like the true load stone or adamant, draws up the yron heart of man to it” (Bishop Hall, “Occas. Medit.,” 52.).
“The adamant ... is such an enemy to the magnet that, if it be bound to it, it will not attract iron” (Leonardus, “Mirr. Stones,” 63).
According to Beckmann (Bohn, 1846, pp. 86–98) the real tourmaline was first brought from Ceylon (where the natives called it tournamal), at the end of the seventeenth century or beginning of the eighteenth century (see A.D. 1707).
It is classed by Pliny as a variety of carbuncle (lib. xxxvii. cap. vii.). John de Laet says (“De Gemmis,” 1647, 8vo, p. 155): “The description of the lyncurium does not ill agree with the hyacinth of the moderns.” Watson thinks likewise (“Phil. Trans.,” Vol. LI. p. 394) and so does John Serapion-Serapio Mauritanus—Yuhanna Ibn Serapion Ben Ibrahim (alluded to by Gilbert, “De Magnete,” Book I. chap. i.) in his “Lib. de simplicibus medicinis,” Argent. 1531, fol. p. 263; and Anselm Boèce de Boot, Flemish naturalist (“Gem. et Lap. Hist.,” Leyden, 1636); while Epiphanius (“De Gemmis,” XII.) states that he could find in the Bible no mention of the lyncurium, which latter he also believes to have been the hyacinth. On the other hand, the Duke de Noya Caraffa (“Recueil de Mém. Æpinus,” Petersb. 1762, 8vo, p. 122) considers the tourmaline to be identical with the theamedes of the ancients (Pliny, lib. xx. 50, and xxxvi., 25; Cardan, “De Subtilitate,” lib. vii. p. 386).
The betylos has doubtless been likewise named in this connection. Strabo, Pliny, Helancius—all speak of the electrical or electro-magnetic power of the betyli. They were worshipped in the remotest antiquity in Egypt and Samothrace as magnetic stones “containing souls which had fallen from heaven,” and the priests of Cybelè wore a small betylos on their bodies (Blavatsky, “Isis Unveiled,” Vol. I. p. 332).
References.—Enfield, “Dict. Phil.,” I. 152: Marbodeus Gallus, 1530–1531 Friburg, pp. 41 and 1539, Cologne, p. 39; Bostock’s “Pliny,” Book XXXVII. chap. xii.; Azuni, “Boussole,” 1809, p. 37; Venanson, “De l’invention de la Boussole Nautique,” Naples, 1808, pp. 27–29; Thomas, “Sc. An.,” 1837, p. 250. See also De Noya, “Encycl. Brit.,” 1855, VIII. p. 529, and Priestley, “History of Electricity,” 1775, p. 293; A. Cæsalpini, “De Metallicis,” Romæ, 1596; Th. Browne, “Pseudodoxia Epidemica,” 1650, p. 51; St. Isidore, “Originum,” lib. xvi. cap. 4; Corn. Gemma, “De Natura Divinis,” lib. i. cap. 7; Alb. Magnus, “De Mineral.,” lib. ii.; Joseph Ennemoser, “History of Magic,” Vol. II. pp. 27, 29, 51; Julius Solinus, “De Mirabilibus,” cap. 34; Johann S. T. Gehler, “Physik. Wörterbuch,” article “Magnetismus”; Joannes Langius, “Epistolarum Med.,” Epist. lxxv. For extract of Serapio’s work see Fernel’s “Coll. ... Greek Writers,” 1576. Consult likewise “Collection des anciens Alchimistes Grecs,” par M. Marcellin Berthelot, Paris, 1887, p. 252: siderites, aimant ou magnes, ferrum vivum, mâle et femelle—with references to Dioscorides, Pliny and Lexicon Alch. Rulandi.
For Pliny, see also “Manual of Classical Biography,” by Jos. Wm. Moss, London, 1837, Vol. I. pp. 473–504.
“For lyke as ye lodestone draweth vnto it yron: so doeth beneficence and well doyng allure all men vnto her.”—Udal. Markè, c. 5.
B.C. 285–247.—Ptolemy (Ptolemæus II, surnamed Philadelphus, or the brother-loving, son of Ptolemy Soter) ordered Timochares, the architect of the palace, to suspend the iron statue of Arsinoë in the temple of Pharos.
Although Pliny says (lib. xxxiv. cap. 14) that the statue was never completed owing to the death of both Ptolemy and his architect, Ausonius (Decimus Magnus), Roman poet (A.D. 309–393), asserts the contrary in his most important work, “Mosella” (vv. 314–320), translation of Mr. de la Ville de Mirmont, the first edition of which was published by Ugollet at Venice in 1499. Therein it is said: “Timochares (and not Dinochares, Dinocrates, Demochrates or Chirocrates) suspended the statue in mid-air (dans les hauteurs aëriennes du temple).... Under the ceiling-vault crowned with loadstones, a bluish magnet draws, by means of an iron hair, the young woman it holds in its embrace.”
“Dinocrates began to make the arched roofe of the temple of Arsinoë all of magnet, or this loadstone, to the end, that within that temple the statue of the said princesse made of yron, might seeme to hang in the aire by nothing” (Holland, “Plinie,” Book XXXIV. cap. 14).
King Theodoric alludes (Cassiodor, “Variar,” lib. i. epist. 45) to a statue of Cupid in the temple of Diana at Ephesus (one of the seven Wonders of the World), and St. Augustine (“De Civitate Dei,” XXI. 6) speaks of a bronze figure in the temple of Serapis at Alexandria, both suspended by means of a magnet attached to the ceiling.[9]
References.—De Mirmont, “La Moselle,” 1889, “Commentaire,” pp. 93 and 95; St. Isidore, “Originum,” lib. xvi. cap. 4; G. Cedrinus, “Compend. Hist.,” cap. 267; Knight’s “Mech. Dict.,” Vol. II. p. 1370; Knight’s “Cyclopædia,” Vol. I. p. 363; J. Ennemoser, “Hist. of Magic,” Vol. II. p. 35; Ath. Kircher, “Magnes,” 1643, lib. ii. prob. vi.; Dinochares, with translation of poem (Claudian, Idyl V) at pp. 61–62 of “Antique Gems,” by Rev. C. W. King, London, 1866; Vincent de Beauvais, “Spec. Mai,” Douai, 1624, Vol. I., lib. viii. cap. 34; Alb. Magnus, “De Mineralibus,” 1651, lib. ii. cap. 6, p. 243; Ausonio Lucius Ampelius, “Lib. Memorialis,” Paris, 1827, cap. viii.; T. H. Martin, “Observ. et Théories,” 1865, pp. 5–7; Thos. Browne, “Pseud. Epidem.,” 1658, Book II. p. 79; W. Barlowe’s “Magneticall Advertisements,” 1616, p. 45; “Simonis Maioli ... dies Caniculares, seu Colloqui, XXIII,” 1597, P. 782; Ruffinus, “Prosper d’Aquitaine”; Porta, “Magia Naturalis,” lib. vii. cap. 27; “Mosella,” in Wernsdorf’s “Poetæ Latini Minores”; E. Salverte, “Phil. of Magic,” 1847, Vol. II. p. 215.
B.C. 200.—Polybius, a Greek statesman and historian, describes (lib. x. cap. 45, “General History”) his optical telegraph—pyrsia—because the signals were invariably produced by means of fire-lights—an unquestionable improvement upon the modes of communication which had been previously suggested by Cleoxenes and Democritus. It consisted of a board upon which the twenty-four letters of the Greek alphabet were arranged in five columns, one space being vacant. The party signalling would hold up with his left hand a number of torches indicating the column from which the desired letter was to be taken, while in the right hand he would hold up to view as many torches as were necessary to designate the particular letter required.
References.—Rollin’s “Ancient History, 9th Dundee,” Vol VI. p. 321; “Emporium of Arts and Sciences,” Vol. I. pp. 296–299; “Penny Encycl.,” Vol. XXIV. p. 145. A good cut of the Polybius telegraph will be found at p. 2 of “Wireless Telegraphy,” by Wm. Maver, Jr., New York, 1904, and a very detailed account of all known fire signals is given at pp. 148 and 373, Vol. IV of “The History of Herodotus,” by Geo. Rawlinson, London, 1880.
B.C. 60–56.—Lucretius (Titus Lucretius Carus), Roman poet, alludes to the magnet in his poem “De Rerum Natura” (“The Nature of Things”), thus translated by Dr. Thomas Busby, London, 1813, Book VI. vv. 1045–1059:
“Now, chief of all, the Magnet’s powers I sing,
And from what laws the attractive functions spring.
(The Magnet’s name the observing Grecians drew
From the Magnet’s region where it grew.)
Its viewless, potent, virtues men surprise;
Its strange effects they view with wondering eyes,
When without aid of hinges, links or springs,
A pendent chain we hold of steely rings,
Dropt from the stone; the stone the binding source,
Ring cleaves to ring, and owns magnetic force;
Those held superior those below maintain;
Circle ’neath circle downward draws in vain,
While free in air disports the oscillating chain.
So strong the Magnet’s virtue as it darts
From ring to ring and knits the attracted parts.”
A rendering by Thomas Creech, A.M., London, 1714, Book VI. vv. 894–989, likewise deserves reproduction here:
“Now sing my muse, for ’tis a weighty cause.
Explain the Magnet, why it strongly draws,
And brings rough Iron to its fond embrace.
This, Men admire; for they have often seen
Small Rings of Iron, six, or eight, or ten,
Compose a subtile chain, no Tye between;
But, held by this, they seem to hang in air,
One to another sticks and wantons there;
So great the Loadstone’s force, so strong to bear!
*****
First, from the Magnet num’rous Parts arise,
And swiftly move; the Stone gives vast supplies;
Which, springing still in Constant Streams, displace
The neighb’ring air and make an Empty Space;
So when the Steel comes there, some Parts begin
To leap on through the Void and enter in.
*****
The Steel will move to seek the Stone’s embrace,
Or up or down, or t’ any other place,
Which way soever lies the Empty Space.”
The transmission of the magnetic attraction through rings or chains is also alluded to in Plato’s “Ion,” p. 533, D. E. Ed. Stephanus; by Pliny, lib. xxxiv. cap. 14; St. Augustine, “De Civitate Dei,” XX. 4; Philo, “De Mundi Opificio,” D. ed., 1691, p. 32; likewise by the learned Bishop Hall, “The English Seneca,” as follows: “That the loadstone should by his secret virtue so drawe yron to it selfe that a whole chaine of needles should hang by insensible points at each other, only by the influence that it sends downe from the first, if it were not ordinary, would seeme incredible” (“Meditations,” 1640, con. 3, par. 18).
References.—“Le Journal des Savants” for January 1824, p. 30. also for March 1833, June 1866 and December 1869; Plutarch, “Platon. Quæst.,” Vol. II. p. 1004, ed. par.; St. Isidore, “Etymologiarum, Originum,” lib. xvi., iv.; the Timæus (Bohn, 1849, Vol. II. p. 394); Platonis, “Io,” Lugduni, 1590, pp. 145, 146; “Houzeau et Lancaster, Bibliographie Générale,” Vol. I. part i. pp. 440–442; Geo. Burgess, tr. of Plato’s “Ion,” London, 1851, Vol. IV. pp. 294–295 and notes.
A.D. 50.—Scribonius Largus, Designationus, Roman physician, relates (Chaps. I. and XLI. of his “De Compositione Med. Medica”) that a freedman of Tiberius called Anthero was cured of the gout by shocks received from the electric torpedo, and Dioscorides advises the same treatment for inveterate pains of the head (“Torpedo,” lib. ii.). Other applications are alluded to by Galen (“Simp. Medic.,” lib. xi.; Paulus Ægineta, “De Re Medica,” lib. vii.; “Encycl. Met.,” article “Electricity,” IV. p. 41). See also Bertholon, “Elec. du Corps Humain,” 1786, Vol. I. p. 174.
Fahie states (“History of Electric Telegraphy,” p. 172) that, along the banks of the Old Calabar River, in Africa, the natives employ the electrical properties of the gymnotus for the cure of their sick children. They either place the ailing child close by the vessel of water containing the animal, or the child is made to play with a very small specimen of the fish.
References.—“La Grande Encycl.,” Vol. XXIX. p. 831; Humboldt, “Voyage Zoologique,” p. 88; “New Gen. Biogr.,” London, 1850, Vol. XI. p. 501; “Larousse Dict.,” Vol. XIV. p. 427; “Hœfer Biogr.,” Vol. XLIII. p. 654.
A.D. 121.—The Chinese knew of old the magnet, its attractive force and its polarity, but the most ancient record made of the peculiar property possessed by the loadstone of communicating polarity to iron is explicitly mentioned in the celebrated dictionary “Choue-Wen,” which Hin-tchin completed in A.D. 121, the fifteenth year of the reign of the Emperor Ngan-ti of the Han dynasty.
This dictionary contains a description of the manner in which the property of pointing with one end toward the south may be imparted to an iron rod by a series of methodical blows, and alludes to (“Tseu”) the “stone with which a direction can be given to the needle.”
“In Europe it has been thought that the needle had its chief tendency to the north pole; but in China the south alone is considered as containing the attractive power” (Sir G. Staunton, “Account of an Embassy,” London, 1797, Vol. I. p. 445).
Le Père Gaubil, who was sent to China in 1721 and died in Pekin 1759, says (“Histoire ... de la dynastie de Tang,” in “Mémoires concernant ...” Vol. XV) that he found, in a work written towards the end of the Han dynasty, the use of the compass distinctly marked to distinguish the north and the south. He also states, though doubtless erroneously, that that form was given it under the reign of Hian-Tsoung.
With reference to the magnetic attraction to the pole, it is well to bear in mind that no allusion whatsoever is made thereto by any of the writers of classical antiquity. This much has already been stated under date B.C. 1000–907. It certainly appears to have escaped the attention of the ancient Greeks and Romans, whose admiration, according to the learned French physician Falconet (“Dissert. Hist. et Crit.”), was excited solely by the attractive property of the loadstone.
The Rev. Father Joseph de Acosta (“Natural and Moral History of the Indies,” translation of C. R. Markham, lib. i. cap. 16) thus alludes to the above subject: “I finde not that, in ancient bookes, there is any mention made of the vse of the Iman or Loadstone, nor of the Compasse (aguja de marear) to saile by; I beleeve they had no knowledge thereof.... Plinie speakes nothing of that vertue it hath, alwaies to turne yron which it toucheth towards the north.... Aristotle, Theophrastus, Dioscorides, Lucretius, Saint Augustine, nor any other writers or Naturall Philosophers that I have seene, make any mention thereof, although they treat of the loadstone.”
Thomas Creech, in the notes to his translation of Lucretius’ “De Natura” says: “Nor indeed, do any of the ancients treat of this last (the directive) power of the loadstone ... and Guido Pancirollus justly places it among the modern inventions.”
References.—Klaproth, “La Boussole,” Paris, 1834, pp. 9, 10, 66; Azuni, “Boussole,” Paris, 1809, p. 30; “English Cycl.”—Arts and Sciences—Vol. V. p. 420; Humboldt, “Cosmos,” 1848, Vol. II. p. 628; John Francis Davis, “The Chinese,” London, 1836, Vol. II. pp. 221, etc., or the 1844 edition, Vol. III. p. 12; Geo. Adams, “Essay ...” 1785, p. 428.
A.D. 218.—Salmasius, in his Commentary upon Solinus, asserts that, at this date, amber was known among the Arabs as Karabe, or Kahrubá, a word which, Avicenna states, is of Persian origin and signifies the power of attracting straws; the magnet being called Ahang-rubá, or attractor of iron.
References.—“Encycl. Met.,” Vol. IV. p. 41; Fahie, “Hist. of Elec. Teleg.,” p. 29.
A.D. 232–290.—Africanus (Sextus Julius), an eminent Christian historical writer, author of a chronicle extending from the date of the creation to A.D. 221, as well as of an extensive work entitled “Kestoi,” states that the Roman generals perfected a system for readily communicating intelligence by means of fires made of different substances.
References.—Shaffner, “Teleg. Man.,” 1859, p. 19; Appleton’s “Cyclopædia,” 1871, Vol. XV. p. 333.
A.D. 235.—It is related that one Makium, who was ordered by the Chinese emperor to construct “a car which would show the South” succeeded in doing so, and thus recovered the secret of manufacture which had for some time been lost. The “Amer. Journ. of Science and the Arts” (Vol. XL. p. 249) adds that, from this date, the construction of a magnetic car seems to have been a puzzle ... and the knowledge of the invention appears to have been confined within very narrow limits. Humboldt says that the magnetic wagon was used as late as the fifteenth century of our era; the “American Journal” states that it cannot be traced later than 1609.
A.D. 265–419.—What is by many believed to be the earliest reliable, distinct mention or actually printed record of the use of the magnet for navigation, appears in the justly prominent Chinese dictionary or rather encyclopædia, “Poei-wen-yun-fou,” wherein it is mentioned that there were during this period (that of the second Tsin dynasty) ships directed to the South by the ching or needle. It is likewise therein stated that the figure then placed upon the magnetic cars represented “a genius in a feather dress” and that, when the emperor went out upon state occasions this car “always led the way and served to indicate the four points of the compass.”
References.—Homer at B.C. 1000–907; Davis, “The Chinese,” Vol. III. p. 12; Klaproth, “Boussole,” pp. 66, 67; Johnson, “Univ. Cycl.,” Vol. I. p. 927. ed. 1877; Miller, “Hist. Phil. Illust.,” London, 1849, Vol. I. p. 180.
In a later work called “Mung-khi-py-than” will be found the following: “The soothsayers rub a needle with the magnet stone, so that it may mark the south; however, it declines constantly a little to the east. It does not indicate the south exactly. When this needle floats on the water it is much agitated. If the fingernails touch the upper edge of the basin in which it floats, they agitate it strongly; only it continues to slide and falls easily. It is preferable, in order to show its virtues in the best way, to suspend it as follows: Take a single filament from a piece of new cotton and attach it exactly to the middle of the needle by a bit of wax as large as a mustard seed. Hang it up in a place where there is no wind. Then the needle always shows the south; but among such needles there are some which, being rubbed, indicate the north. Our soothsayers have some which show the south and some which show the north. Of this property of the magnet to indicate the south, like that of the cypress to show the west, no one can tell the origin.”
A.D. 295–324.—Koupho, Chinese physicist as well as writer, and one of the most celebrated men of his age, compares the attractive property of the magnet with that of amber animated by friction and heat. In his “Discourse on the Loadstone” he says: “The magnet attracts iron as amber draws mustard seeds. There is a breath of wind that promptly and mysteriously penetrates both bodies, uniting them imperceptibly with the rapidity of an arrow. It is incomprehensible.”
References.—Klaproth, “Boussole,” p. 125; Humboldt, “Cosmos,” 1848, Vol. V. p. 51; Libri, “Hist. des Mathém.,” Vol. I. p. 381, note 2.
A.D. 304.—St. Elmo (St. Erasmus) Bishop of Formiæ, in ancient Italy, who suffered martyrdom about this date at Gæta, is the one after whom sailors in the Mediterranean first named the fires or flames which by many are believed to be of an electric nature and which appear during stormy weather, either at the yardarms, mastheads, in the rigging, or about the decks of a vessel. When two flames are seen together, they are called Castor and Pollux, “twin gods of the sea, guiding the mariner to port,” and are considered by seamen an indication of good luck and of fine weather; but when only one flame is visible it is called Helena, and is supposed to be an evil omen, the beacon of an avenging God luring the sailor to death.
St. Elmo’s fire is also known to the Italians as the fire of St. Peter and of St. Nicholas, to the Portuguese as San Telmo and as Corpos Santos, and to the English sailors as comazant or corposant.
The historian of Columbus’ second voyage says that during the month of October 1493 “St. Elmo appeared on the topgallant-masts with seven lighted tapers.” It is also alluded to by Pliny, “Nat. Hist.” lib. ii. cap. 37; by Stobæus, “Eclogarum Phys.,” I. 514; Livy, “Hist.,” cap. 2; Seneca, “Nat. Quæst.,” I. 1; by Cæsar, “de Bello Africano,” cap. 6 edit. Amstel., 1686; and by Camoëns, “Os Lusiades,” canto v. est. 18.
“Last night I saw St. Elmo’s stars,
With their glimmering lanterns all at play
On the tops of the masts and the tips of the spars,
And I knew we should have foul weather to-day.”
Longfellow, “Golden Legend,” Chap. V.
“... Sometimes I’d divide,
And burn in many places—on the topmast,
The yards and bowsprit, would I flame distinctly,
Then meet and join....”
Shakespeare, “The Tempest,” Act i. sc. 2.
References.—“Nouvelle Biographie Générale,” Vol. XVI. p. 179; “Grand Dict. Univ. du xixe siècle” of Pierre Larousse, Vol. VII. p. 786; Humboldt, “Cosmos,” 1849, Vol. II. p. 245; Becquerel, “Traité Expér.,” 1834, Vol. I. p. 34, and his “Résumé,” Chap. I; Le Breton, “Histoire,” 1884, p. 43; “La Lumière Electrique,” Juin 1891, p. 546, likewise Procopius, “De Bello, Vandal,” lib. ii. cap. 2; William Falconer’s “Observations,” etc. in Vol. III. p. 278 of “Mem. Lit. and Ph. Soc. Manchester,” 1790 (translated in Italian, 1791), for an account of the flames appearing upon the spear points of the Roman legions.
A.D. 400.—Marcellus Empiricus, who was magister officiorum in the reign of Theodosius the Great (379–395) states in his “De Medicamentis Empiricis,” Venetiis, 1547, P. 89, that the magnet called antiphyson attracts and repulses iron. This, adds Becquerel in his “Résumé,” Chap. III, further proves that these properties were known in the fourth century.
References.—Klaproth, “Boussole,” 1834, p. 12; Harris, “Magnetism,” I and II; “New Gen. Biogr. Dict.,” London, 1850, Vol. IX. p. 475.
A.D. 425.—Zosimus (Count), Greek historian, who lived under Theodosius II (401–450), “sometime advocate of the Treasury of the Roman Empire,” wrote the history of that empire from the reign of Augustus to the year A.D. 410, wherein he is the first to call attention to the electrolytic separation of metals, i. e. that the latter acquire a coating of copper upon being immersed in a cupreous solution.
References.—Gore, “Art of Electro-Met.,” 1877, p. 1, or the London 1890 edition, p. B; “A treatise on Electro-Metal.,” by Walter G. McMillan, London, 1890, p. 2; “Journal des Savants” for June 1895, pp. 382–387; Dr. Geo. Langbein’s treatise, translated by W. T. Brannt, Chap. I; “Nouvelle Biogr. Gén.” (Hœfer), Vol. XLVI. p. 1022; Schoell, “Hist. de la Littér. Grecque”; Pauly, “Real Encycl. ... Alterthums”; “Biogr. Univ.” (Michaud), Vol. XLV. p. 606; “Nouveau Larousse,” Vol. VII. p. 1429.
A.D. 426.—Augustine (Aurelius, Saint), the most prominent of the Latin Fathers of the Church, finishes his “De Civitate Dei,” which he began in 413, and which is considered the greatest monument to his genius. He was probably the most voluminous writer of the earlier Christian centuries. He was the author of no less than 232 books, in addition to many tractates or homilies and innumerable epistles (“Books and their Makers, during the Middle Ages,” Geo. Haven Putnam, New York, 1896, Vol. I. p. 3). In the “De Civitate Dei” he tells us (Basileæ, 1522, pp. 718–719) of the experiment alluded to herein at A.D. 1558. This had better be given in his own words (“De Civitate Dei,” lib. ii. cap. 4, Dod’s translation, Edinburgh, 1871):
“When I first saw it (the attraction of the magnet), I was thunderstruck (vehementer inhorrui), for I saw an iron ring attracted and suspended by the stone; and then, as if it had communicated its own property to the iron it attracted and had made it a substance like itself, this ring was put near another and lifted it up, and, as the first ring clung to the magnet, so did the second ring to the first. A third and fourth were similarly added, so that there hung from the stone a kind of chain of rings with their hoops connected, not interlinking but attached together by their outer surface. Who would not be amazed by this virtue of the stone, subsisting as it does, not only in itself, but transmitted through so many suspended rings and binding them together by invisible links? Yet far more astonishing is what I heard about the stone from my brother in the episcopate, Severus, Bishop of Milevis. He told me that Bathanarius, once Count of Africa, when the Bishop was dining with him, produced a magnet and held it under a silver plate on which he placed a bit of iron; then as he moved his hand with the magnet underneath the plate, the iron upon the plate moved about accordingly. The intervening silver was not affected at all, but precisely as the magnet was moved backward and forward below it, no matter how quickly, so was the iron attracted above. I have related what I have myself witnessed: I have related what I was told by one whom I trust as I trust my own eyes.”
References.—“Vie de St. Augustin,” by Poujoulat, second edition, Paris, 1852, and by G. Moringo, 1533; Possidius, also Rivius, “Vitæ de St. Augus.”; L. Tillemont, “Mémoires Eccles.,” 1702 (the 13th Vol. of which is devoted to an elaborate account of his life and controversies); Bindemann, “Der heilige Augustinus,” 1844; Butler, “Lives of the Saints”; Lardner, “Credibility of the Gospel History,” Vol. VI. part i. pp. 58–59, and Vol. X. pp. 198–303; Neander, “Geschichte der Christlichen Religion und Kirche”; Pellechet, “Catalogue Général des Incunables,” 1897, pp. 339–370; Alfred Weber, “History of Philosophy,” tr. by Frank Thilly, New York, 1896, pp. 188–198; “St. Augustine’s City of God,” tr. by Rev. Marcus Dods, Edinburgh, 1871, Vol. II. book xxi. pp. 420, 457; “Journal des Scavans,” Vol. XIV. for 1686, pp. 22–23, mentions the above-named experiment and the effect of diamond on the loadstone; “Journal des Savants” for Sept. 1898; Ueberweg, “Hist. of Philosophy” (Morris’ tr., 1885), Vol. I. pp. 333–346.
A.D. 450.—Aëtius (Amidenus), Greek physician, informs us (Aëtii, op. lib. xi. cap. 25) that “those who are troubled with the gout in their hands or in their feet, or with convulsions, find relief when they hold a magnet in their hand. Paracelsus recommended the use of the magnet in a number of diseases, as fluxes, hæmorrhages, etc., while Marcellus (“Steph. Artis. Med. Princip.,” II. p. 253) and Camillus Leonardus (“Speculum Lapidum,” lib. ii.) assert that it will cure the toothache.”
During the year 1596, Jean Jacques Vuccher published “De Secretis” (“The secrets and marvels of Nature”), wherein, at p. 166, he thus advises the application of a loadstone for curing the headache: “La pierre d’aymant appliquée et mise contre la teste, oste toutes les douleurs et maux d’icelle-ce que nostre Hollerius escrit comme l’ayant prins [sic] des commentaires des anciens.” And, in 1754, Lenoble constructed magnets that were readily used in the treatment of various diseases (“Practical Mechanic,” Vol. II. p. 171).
The application of the magnet for the relief of various complaints is treated of at pp. 334–335, Vol. II. of J. Ennemoser’s “History of Magic,” where will be found a list of works containing accounts of the oldest and most extraordinary known cures on record. Additional references to cures by the magnet, as well as with iron or amber—besides those named more particularly at A.D. 1770 (Maxim. Hell) and at A.D. 1775 (J. F. Bolten)—are to be found in the following works:
Avicenna, “Canona Medicinæ,” Venice, 1608, lib. ii. cap. 470; Pliny, “Natural Historie,” Holland tr., 1601, Chap. IV. p. 609; Hali Abas, “Liber totius medicinæ,” 1523, lib. i.; Serapio Mauritanus, “De simplicibus medicinis,” Argent., 1531, pp. 260, 264; Antonius Musa Brasavolus, “Examen omnium simplicium medicamentorum,” Rome 1536; Santes de Ardoynis Pisaurensis, “Liber de Venenis” (Venetiis, 1492), Basilæ, 1562; Oribasius, “De facultate metallicorum,” lib. xiii.; Joannes Baptista Montanus, “Metaphrasis Summaria ...” 1551; G. Pictorio, in his poem published at Basel in 1567, or in the 1530–1531 editions of “Marbodei Galli Poetæ vetustissimi de lapidibus pretiosis Enchiridion” (J. A. Vander Linden, “De Scriptis Medicis,” 1651, pp. 210–211); Rhazès, “De simplicibus, ad Almansorem,” Venetiis, 1542, lib. ult. cap. 295; Joannes Lonicerus (author of “De Meteoris,” Frankfort, 1550), “In Dioscoridæ Anazarbei de re medica ...” 1543, p. 77; Matthæus Silvaticus, “Opus Pandectarum Medicinæ,” 1498, 1511, 1526 (1541), cap. 446; Petrus de Abano, “Tractatus de Venenis,” 1490, also “Conciliator Differentiarum Philosophorum” (1496), 1520, 1526; Nicolaus Myrepsus, “Liber de compositione medicamentorum,” 1541, 1549, 1567, 1626; Joannes Manardus, “Epistolarum medicinalium” (Basilæ, 1549); Dioscorides Pedacius, “De materia medica,” Spengel ed., 1829, Chap. CXLVII. or in the 1557 ed. p. 507, or in the translation made by Joannes Ruellius in 1543; Nicholas Monardus, “Joyfull newes out of the new-found worlde,” Frampton tr., London, 1596; Arnaldus de Villa Nova, “Tractatus de virtutibus herbarum” (1499); Amatus Lusitanus, “Enarrationes Eruditissimæ,” 1597, pp. 482, 507; Gabriellus Fallopius, “De Simplicibus Medicamentis purgentibus tractatus,” and “Tractatus de compositione Medicamentorum,” Venetiis, 1566, 1570; Joannes Langius, “Epistolarum Medicinalium ...,” Paris, 1589; Petri Andriæ Mathiolus, “Commentarii ... Dioscoridis ... de materia medica,” 1598, p. 998; W. Barlowe, “Magneticall Advertisements,” 1616, p. 7, or the 1843 reprint; Albertus Magnus, “De Mineralibus” (1542), lib. ii.; Oswaldus Crollius, “Basilica Chimica,” 1612, p. 267; Nicolaus Curtius, “Libellus de medicamentis ...” Giessæ Cattorum, 1614; Rudolphi Goclenii—Goclenius—“Tractatus de magnetica curatione,” 1609, 1613, also “Synarthosis Magnetica,” Marpurgi, 1617 (Eloy “Dict. Hist. de la Méd.,” Vol. II. pp. 359–360); Luis de Oviedo, “Methodo de la Coleccion y Reposicion de las medicinas simples,” 1622, p. 502; W. Charleton, “A Ternary of Paradoxes of the Magnetic cure of Wounds,” 1650; the “Pharmacopœia Augustana,” Augsburg, 1621, p. 182; Patrick Brydone in “Phil. Trans.,” Vol. L. pp. 392, 695, and Vol. LXIII. p. 163. Consult also the abridgments by Hutton, Vol. XI. p. 262, Vol. XIII. p. 415; Waring’s “Bibliotheca Therapeutica,” London, 1878.
“The magnet ... gives comfort and grace, and is a cure for many complaints; it is of great value in disputes. When pulverised, it cures many burns. It is a remedy for dropsy” (I Sermone ... di F. Sacchetti ... § 18).
According to Dias, “the magnet reconciles husbands to their wives,” and Platea remarks that “it is principally of use to the wounded,” while Avicenna says “it is a remedy against spleen, the dropsy and alopecian.”
For additional information, consult J. Beckmann’s “History of Inventions,” Bohn, 1846, Vol. I. p. 43, and the article “Somnambulism” in the “Encyclopædia Britannica.”
A.D. 543.—The Japanese say that at about this date the Mikado received from the Court of Petsi in Corea “the wheel which indicates the south.”
Reference.—Knight, “Mechanical Dictionary,” Vol. II. p. 1397.
A.D. 658.—As shown by Kaï-bara-Tok-sin, in the “Wa-zi-si,” the first magnetic cars were constructed during this year in Japan; the loadstone was not, however, discovered in that country until A.D. 713, when it was brought from the province of Oomi (Klaproth, “Boussole,” p. 94). The “Journal of the Franklin Institute” (Vol. XVIII. for 1836, p. 69), gives a description and illustration of one of these magnetic chariots, taken from the thirty-third volume of the Japanese Encyclopædia.
A.D. 806–820.—Between these dates, under the Thâng dynasty, were first made the cars called Kin-Koung-yuan, which were magnetic chariots similar to those previously known, but bearing in addition a drum and a bell. Both the latter were struck at regular intervals by an erect male figure placed at the head of the car (“American Journal of Science and the Arts,” Vol. XL. p. 249).
A critic named Tchen-yn admits, as already indicated herein under the A.D. 235 date, that the knowledge of the mode of construction of the magnetic cars was by no means general. “I know well,” adds he, “that, at the time of the Thâng, under Hien-toung (who ascended the throne 806 A.D., and reigned seventeen years) a chariot was made which always showed the four parts of the earth, in imitation, it was said, of those constructed at the time of Hoang-ti.... Upon it stood the figure of a spirit, whose hand always pointed to the south.”
References.—“Mémoires concernant l’histoire ...” by Saillant et Nyon, Paris, 1776–1788, Vol. XIII. p. 234; Klaproth, “Boussole,” p. 72.
A.D. 968.—Kung-foo-Whing is said to have invented a method of transmitting sound through wires by means of an apparatus called thumthsein, although no trace whatever of the latter is to be found in any of the numerous authorities herein quoted.
A.D. 1067–1148.—Frode (Ari Hinn—Ara Hin—or the Wise), Arius Polyhistor (Ari Prestrinha Frodi Thorgillsun), Icelandic historian, “than whom there is no higher authority,” was the first compiler of the celebrated “Landnama-Bok,” which contains a full account of all the early settlers in Iceland, and is doubtless the most complete record of the kind ever made by any nation.
In it, he says that, at the time Floke Vilgerderson left Rogoland, in Norway, about A.D. 868, for another visit to Gardansholm (Iceland), of which he was the original discoverer, “the seamen had no loadstone (leiderstein) in the northern countries,” thus showing, according to Prof. Hansteen, that the directive power of the needle and its use in navigation were known in Europe in the eleventh century. In this manner is given the first intimation of the knowledge of the mariner’s compass outside of China. The passage quoted above is by many supposed to be an interpolation, for it is not found in several manuscripts, and it has even been asserted (“Br. Ann.,” p. 296), that its origin does not antedate the fourteenth century, thus strengthening the claims of the French in behalf of Guyot De Provins.
References.—“Landnama-Bok,” Kiœbenhaven, 1774, T. I. chap. ii. par. 7; John Angell, “Magnet. and Elect.,” 1874, p. 10; Lloyd, “Magnetism,” p. 101; “Pre-Col. Disc. of Am.,” De Costa, pp. xxiii and 11; “Bull. de Géogr.,” 1858, p. 177; “Good Words,” 1874, p. 70; Klaproth, “Boussole,” p. 40; Hansteen, “Inquiries Concerning the Magnetism of the Earth,” and “Magazin für Naturvidenskaberne Christiana,” I. 2, “Encycl. Metrop.,” Vol. III. p. 736; the 1190–1210 entry herein.
A.D. 1111–1117.—Keou-tsoungchy, Chinese philosopher and writer, gives, in the medical natural history called “Pen-thsao-yan-i,” written by him under the Soung dynasty, the earliest description of a water compass found in any Chinese work, viz.: “The magnet is covered over with little bristles slightly red, and its superficies is rough. It attracts iron and unites itself with it; and, for this reason, it is commonly called the stone which licks up iron. When an iron point is rubbed upon the magnet, it acquires the property of pointing to the south, yet it declines always to the east, and is not perfectly true to the south.... If the needle be passed through a wick or a small tube of thin reed, and placed upon water, it will indicate the south, but with a continual inclination towards the point ping, that is to say, East five-sixths South.”
In the “Mung-khi-py-than,” also composed under the Soung dynasty, it is stated that fortune-tellers rub the needle with the loadstone in order to make it indicate the south.
References.—Comptes Rendus, Vol. XIX. p. 365; “Am. Journal Sc. and Arts,” 1841, XL. p. 248; Davis, “The Chinese,” 1844, Vol. III. p. 13; Becquerel, “Elec. et Mag.,” p. 58; Klaproth, “Boussole,” pp. 67–69, 95; Humboldt, “Cosmos,” 1849, Vol. II. p. 656, and Vol. V. p. 52; Knight, “Mech. Dict.,” Vol. II. p. 1397; Humboldt, “Examen Critique,” Paris, 1836, Vol. III. p 34.
A.D. 1160.—Eustathius, Archbishop of Thessalonica, relates in his commentary on the Iliad of Homer, that Walimer, father of Theodoric and King of the Goths, used to emit sparks from his body; also that a certain philosopher observed sparks occasionally issuing from his chest accompanied with a crackling noise.
Leithead tells us that streams of fire came from the hair of Servius Tullius, a Roman King, during sleep, when he was about seven years of age (Dionysius, “Antiq. Rom.” lib. iv.; Pliny, “Hist. Nat.” lib. ii. cap. 37); that Cardan alludes to the hair of a certain Carmelite monk emitting sparks whenever it was rubbed backward (“De Rerum Varietate,” lib. viii. cap. 43); that Father Faber, in his “Palladium Chemicum,” speaks of a young woman whose hair emitted sparks while being combed, and also refers to allusions made in the same line by Thomas Bartholinus, “De Luce Animalium,” Lugd. 1647, p. 121; Ezekiel di Castro, “De Igne Lambente”; Johann Jacob Hemmer, “Trans. Elec. Soc. Mannheim,” Vol. VI; and Phil. Trans., Vol. V. pp. 1, 40.
References.—Eustath in Iliad, E. p. 515, ed. Rom.; “Encycl. Brit.,” 1855, VIII. p. 571; Priestley, “History of Electricity,” London, 1775, pp. 128, 129; Phil. Trans., abridged, Vol. X. pp. 278, 343, 344, 357.
A.D. 1190–1210.—Guyot de Provins, minstrel at the Court of the Emperor Frederick I (Barbarossa), gives the first French mention of the water compass in a manuscript “politico-satirical” poem entitled “La Bible,” to be found in the Bibliothèque Nationale. It is therein said that sailors were at that time in the habit of rubbing needles upon the ugly brown stone called marinière, “to which iron adheres of its own accord,” and that, as soon as placed afloat upon a small piece of straw in the water, the needles would point to the North. The passage alluding to the compass has been copied by D. A. Azuni, member of the Turin Academy of Sciences, from the original manuscript, and is given entire, with the French translation, at p. 137 of his “Dissertation ...” second edition, Paris, 1809:
“De notre père l’apostoile (le pape)
*****
Ils l’appellent la tresmontaigne
*****
Par la vertu de la marinière,
Une pierre laide et brumière,
Ou li fers volontiers se joint....”
The passage is also given by Klaproth, at pp. 41–43, and by Venanson, at p. 72, of their respective works already cited; likewise by Bertelli, p. 59 of his Memoir published in 1868.
Sonnini (C. S.), in Buffon “Minéraux,” Vol. XV, p. 100, says that Azuni has successfully established the claims of France to the first use of the mariner’s compass. Other writers herein, who follow in their order, will doubtless show to the satisfaction of the reader that, as the Arabs possessed it at the same time, they must have received it from the Chinese, and therefore transmitted it to the Franks during the first Crusades, as stated by Klaproth in his “Lettre à M. de Humboldt,” Paris, 1834, pp. 64–66.
References.—Becquerel, “Traité d’Elect. et de Magn.,” Vol. I. p. 70; Bertelli, “Mem. sopra P. Peregrino,” 1868, p. 59; R. M. Ferguson, “Electricity,” 1867, p. 43; J. F. Wolfart, “Des Guiot von Provins,” Halle, 1861; “Bulletin de Géographie,” 1858, p. 177; Barbazan, “Fabliaux,” Vol. II. p. 328: Becquerel, “Résumé,” Chap. III; Humboldt, “Cosmos,” 1849, Vol. II. pp. 628–630; “Amer. Journ. Sc. and Arts,” Vol. XL. p. 243; “Guiot von Provins,” in Meyers Konvers. Lex., Vol. VIII. p. 81; “Encycl. Met.,” Vol. III. p. 736, gives a verbatim copy of part of Guyot’s poem, with its literal translation; Libri, “Hist. des Sc. Mathém.,” Paris, 1838, Vol. II. p. 63; “Encycl. Met.,” Vol. XII. p. 104; J. Lorimer, “Essay on Magnetism,” London, 1795; Sir John Francis Davis, “The Chinese,” Vol. III. p. xii, or “China,” London, 1857, pp. 184–187; Whewell, “Hist. of Ind. Sc.,” Vol. II. p. 46.
Guiot de Provins. “La Bible.” In the Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris.
A.D. 1204–1220.—Jacobus de Vitry, Cardinal Bishop of Ptolemais, in Syria, one of the Crusaders, thus speaks of the compass in his “Historiæ Hierosolimitanæ,”[10] cap. 89 and 91: “The Magnet [diamant, as shown under the B.C. 321 date] is found in the Indies.... It attracts iron through a secret virtue; after a needle has touched the loadstone, it always turns toward the North Star, which latter is as the world’s axis and is immobile, while the other stars turn around it; that is why the compass is so useful to navigators, valde necessarius navigantibus.”
References.—Azuni, “Boussole,” p. 140; Venanson, “Boussole,” p. 77; Klaproth, pp. 14, 43–44; Poggendorff, Vol. II. p. 1184; Becquerel, “Elec. et Magn.,” Vol. I. p. 70; Knight, “Mech. Dict.,” Vol. II. p. 1397.
A.D. 1207.—Neckam (Alexander of), 1157–1217, Abbot of St. Mary’s, alludes in his “De Utensilibus” to a needle carried on board ship, which, being placed upon a pivot and allowed to take its own position of repose, “showed mariners their course when the Polar Star is hidden.” In another work, “De Naturis Rerum” (lib. ii. cap. 89), he writes: “Mariners at sea, when, through cloudy weather in the day, which hides the sun, or through the darkness of the night, they lose the knowledge of the quarter of the world to which they are sailing, touch a needle with a magnet which will turn around until, on its own motion ceasing, its point will be directed toward the North (Chappell, “Nature,” No. 346, June 15, 1876; Thomas Wright, “Chronicles and Memoirs ... Middle Ages,” 1863).
References.—“La Grande Encyclopédie,” Vol. XXIV. p. 898; Hœfer, “Nouv. Biogr. Générale,” Vol. XXXVII. p. 570.
A.D. 1235–1315.—Lully (Raymond) of Majorca (often confounded with Ramond Lull, who is the author of several alchemical books and of whose biography very little is known), was, by turns, a soldier, a poet, a monk, a knight, a missionary and a martyr, and is referred to by Humboldt as “the singularly ingenious and eccentric man, whose doctrines excited the enthusiasm of Giordano Bruno when a boy, and who was at once a philosophical systematizer and an analytical chemist, a skilful mariner and a successful propagator of Christianity.”
During the year 1272 Lully published his “De Contemplatione,” which was followed by “Fenix de las maravillas del orbe” in 1286, and by his “Arte de Naveguar” in 1295. In these he states that the seamen of his time employed instruments of measurement, sea charts and the magnetic needle (tenian, los mareantes, instrumento, carta, compas y aguja), and he describes the improvements made in the astrolabes (designed for the determination of time and of geographical latitudes by meridian altitudes and capable of being employed at sea) from the period that the astrolabium of the Majorcan pilots was in use.
The application of the astrolabe to navigation, Mr. Irving says (“Hist. of the Life ... of Columbus,” London, 1828, Vol. I. pp. 76–78), was “one of those timely events which seem to have some thing providential in them. It was immediately after this that Columbus proposed his voyage of discovery to the crown of Portugal.”
Lully also confirms the fact that the Barcelonians employed atlases, astrolabes[11] and compasses long before Don Jaime Ferrer penetrated to the mouth of the Rio de Ouro, on the western coast of Africa, which was about fifty years after the date of the last-named work.
Incidentally it may be added that Lully, posing as an alchemist, is said to have in the presence of the English King, Edward I, converted iron into gold, which latter was coined into rose-nobles (Bergman, “Hist. of Chem.”; Louis Figuier, “L’Alchimie et les Alchimistes,” Paris, 1860, p. 148).
References.—For Lul. Raimon, or Raymundus, or Lullius (1235–1315), “Dict. of Philos. and Psych.,” by J. M. Baldwin, New York, 1902, Vol. II. p. 32; Humboldt, “Cosmos,” 1849, Vol. II. pp. 629–631, 670, and 1859, Vol. V. p. 55; Miller, “Hist. Phil. Ill.,” London, 1849, Vol. II. p. 217; Whewell, “Hist. Ind. Sc.,” 1859, Vol. I. p. 169; also his “Phil. of the Ind. Sc.,” London, 1840, Vol. II. pp. 320–323; “Journal des Savants,” 1896, pp. 342, 345–355; “Biogr. Génér.,” article “Lulle”; Helfferich, “Raym. L.,” Berlin, 1858; Nicolai Eymerici, “Direct Inq.,” Rome, 1578; Bolton, “Ch. Hist. of Chem.,” pp. 1000–1001; Ueberweg, “Hist. of Philos.” (Morris’ translation, 1885), Vol. I. pp. 457, 459; “Lives of Alchemystical Philosophers,” by Arthur Edward Waite, London, 1888, pp. 68–88, in which is given, at pp. 276–306, an alphabetical catalogue of all works on Hermetic Philosophy and Alchemy; Humboldt, “Examen Critique,” Paris, 1836, Vol. I. pp. 7, 283.
For the Dominican Giordano (Jordano) Bruno, see “The Course of the History of Modern Philosophy,” by Victor Cousin, New York, 1872, Vol. II. pp. 56–58; “English Cycl.” (Biography), Vol. I. p. 979; Libri, “Hist. des Sc. Mathém.,” Paris, 1838, Vol. I. p. 141; “La Grande Encycl.,” Vol. VIII. pp. 258–259, reviewed in the “London Athenæum,” Nov. 28, 1903, p. 711.
Vincent de Beauvais. “Speculum Naturale.”
Page taken from the 1473 copy, now in the Bibliothèque, Ste. Geneviève, Paris.
A.D. 1250.—Vincent de Beauvais, another Crusader, writes his “Mirror of Nature” (“Bibliotheca Mundi, Speculum Majus, Speculum Triplex”) for St. Louis and his consort, Marguerite de Provence, and speaks therein of the polarity of the needle (“Speculi Naturalis,” Vol. II. lib. ix. cap. 19). He cites Aristotle as having written a book, “De Lapide,” containing a notice of the magnet’s use in navigation, but none of Aristotle’s known works appear to have the passage given. Cabæus and others rather judge that book to be the work of some Arabic writer (Thomas Creech, “Lucretius”). Libri, however, says that a translation or abrégé of the MS. of “De Lapide” is at the Paris Library—MSS. Arabes, No. 402 (“Hist. des sc. Mathém.,” Vol. I. p. 101).
Le Sieur Petrus Peregrinus de Maricourt (see A.D. 1269) alludes clearly to the polarity of the needle in an epistle, “Ad Sigerum de Foucaucourt—Fontancourt—militem de Magnete,” written toward the end of the thirteenth century, and the magnet is, at about the same period, referred to in the following lines of the minstrel Gauthier d’Espinois, contemporary of the Count of Champagne, Thibaud VI, who lived before the middle of the thirteenth century (“Hist. Lit. de la France,” 1856, Vol. XXIII—chansonniers—pp. 576, 831):
“Tout autresi (ainsi) comme l’aimant déçoit (détourne)
L’aiguilette par force de vertu
A ma dame tot le mont (monde) retennue
Qui sa beauté connoit et aperçoit.”
Vincent de Beauvais applies the terms zohron and aphron (not afon) to the south and north ends of the needle, and Mr. J. Klaproth (“Lettre à M. de Humboldt sur l’invention de la Boussole,” Paris, 1834, pp. 49–51), says these words are Arabian, notwithstanding assertions made to the contrary by Martinus Lipenius in his “Navigatio Salomonis Ophiritica Illustrata,” 1660, cap. v. sec. 3, as well as by many others who have written upon the compass.
References.—Sonnini, in Buffon, “Minéraux,” VIII. p. 76; Humboldt, “Cosmos,” 1859–1860, Vol. II. pp. 253–254, and Vol. V. p. 54; Azuni, “Boussole,” pp. 41, 42, and 44; Klaproth, p. 13; Miller, “History Philosophically Illustrated,” London, 1849, Vol. I. p. 179, note. “Simonis Maioli ... Dies Caniculares, seu Colloqui,” XXIII. 1597, p. 783; Dr. F. Ueberweg, “Hist. of Phil.” (Morris’ translation, 1885), Vol. I. pp. 433, 435; “Journal des Savants” for Feb.-Mar. 1892; “Vincenti Bellov. Speculi Naturalis,” Vol. II. lib. ix. cap. 19.
It may be added that the “Mirror of Nature”[12] is one of the four pretentious works which, however popular they may at any time have been and however powerfully they may have influenced the age in which they were written, do not, says Humboldt, fulfil by their contents the promise of their titles. The other three are the “Opus Majus” of Roger Bacon, the “Liber Cosmographicus” (Physical Geography) of Albertus Magnus, and the “Imago Mundi” (Picture of the World) of Cardinal Petrus de Alliaco—Pedro de Helico—Pierre d’Ailly. (For the celebrated French theologian Pierre d’Ailly (1350–1420), Chancellor of the Paris University, see “Histoire de l’Astronomie,” J. F. C. Hœfer, Paris 1873, p. 290; “Paris et ses historiens,” Le Roux de Lincy et L. M. Tisserand, Paris, 1867, p. 402 (etched portrait); “New Int. Encycl.,” New York, 1902, Vol. I. p. 231; “La Grande Encycl.,” Vol. I. pp. 952–954; also works relating to him by Aubrelicque, Compiègne, 1869, by Arthur Dinaux, Cambrai, 1824, and by Geo. Pameyer, Strasbourg, 1840.) The last-named work by Pierre d’Ailly was the chief authority at the time and exercised a greater influence on the discovery of America than did the correspondence with the learned Florentine Toscanelli (Humboldt, “Cosmos,” 1849, Vol. II. p. 621; “La lettre et la carte de Toscanelli,” par Henri Vignaud, Paris, 1901, or “Toscanelli et Christophe Colomb” in the “Annales de Géographie,” No. 56, 11e année, Mars 15, 1902, pp. 97–110; “Toscanelli in der älteren und neuren Columbus literatur,” E. Geleich Mitteil. Wien, Vol. XXXVI. 10, 1893).
Two of the above-named works partake of the encyclopædic, and in this class likewise properly enter the twenty books “De Rerum Natura” of Thomas Cantapratensis of Louvain (1230), the “Book of Nature,” by Conrad Van Meygenberg of Ratisbon (1349), and the great “Margarita Philosophica,” or “Circle of the Sciences,” of Father Gregorius Reisch (1486). (See the different entries concerning the last-named work at pp. 663–664 of Libri’s Catalogue, Vol. II, for 1861.) One more work bears title “Picture of the World”—“l’Image du Monde”—written by Gautier de Metz, a French poet of the thirteenth century, on the lines of still another encyclopædic “Imago Mundi,” by Honorius d’Autun (Neubauer, “Traductions historiques de l’Image du Monde,” 1876, p. 129; Haase, likewise Fritsche, “Untersuch ... der Image du Monde,” 1879 and 1880; Fant, “l’Image du Monde, étudié dans ses diverses rédactions françaises,” Upsal, 1886. Chas. Bossut, in his “Hist. Générale des Mathém.,” Paris, 1810, Vol. I. p. 229, also mentions an encyclopædic “Mirroir du Monde,” in Turkish Gian Numah; “The Final Philosophy,” Chas. W. Shields, New York, 1877, p. 133).
A.D. 1254.—Albertus Magnus, of the family of the Counts of Bollstädt, one of the most prominent philosophers and theologians of the Middle Ages, likewise alludes to the book “De Lapide” already referred to at A.D. 1250, and to the Arabic terms zohron and aphron, giving to these words, however, a wrong interpretation.[13]
Albertus Magnus (1193–1280) was justly styled Doctor Universalis, for, from the time he entered the Order of the Dominican Friars in 1221, as well as throughout his teachings, mainly at Bologna, Strasburg, Freiburg and Cologne, he displayed an intimate acquaintance with almost all branches of the natural sciences. He was especially well versed in philosophy, astronomy and mathematics—in rebus magicis expertus fuit—and was justly considered by many as the most erudite philosopher of his generation; an encomium of the very rarest kind, when such rivals as Alexander of Hales and Thomas Aquinas could dispute the palm with him. Natural science, says Humboldt (“Cosmos,” 1860, Vol. II. pp. 243–245), was intimately associated with medicine and philosophy among the learned Arabs, and, in the Christian Middle Ages, with theological polemics. The latter, from their tendency to assert an exclusive influence, repressed empirical inquiry into the departments of physics, organic morphology, and also astronomy, the last being, for the most part, closely allied to astrology. The study of the comprehensive works of Aristotle, introduced by Arabs and by Jewish Rabbis, had tended to lead to a philosophical fusion of all branches of study (Jourdain, “Sur les traductions d’Aristotle,” p. 256; Michael Sachs, “Die Religiöse Poesie der Juden in Spanien,” 1845, s. 180–200), and hence Ibn-Sina (Avicenna), Ibn-Roschd (Averroës), Albertus Magnus and Roger Bacon passed for the representatives of all the knowledge of their time. The fame which in the Middle Ages surrounded the names of these four great men was proportionate to the general diffusion of this opinion of their endowments.
Albertus was the first scholastic who systematically reproduced the philosophy of Aristotle with reference to the Arabian commentators and who remodelled it to meet the requirements of ecclesiastical dogma. The cause of the new development of scholasticism in the thirteenth century was the translation, for the first time, into Latin of the complete works of Aristotle, which latter only came to the knowledge of the scholastics (1210–1225) through the agency of Arabian philosophy. The leading Arabian philosophers were Avicenna, Averroës and Avempace, whilst, in the new movement, Albertus Magnus, St. Thomas Aquinas and Joannes Duns Scotus represented the culmination of scholastic thought and its consolidation into a system.[14]
Albertus, according to Humboldt, must be mentioned as an independent investigator in the domain of analytic chemistry, improving as he did the practical manipulation of ores, and having actually enlarged the insight of men into the general mode of action of the chemical forces of nature. His “Liber Cosmographicus” is a singularly able presentment of physical geography. He also wrote very extensively upon plant-life, and is the author of commentaries upon practically all the physical works of the Stagirite, although in the commentary on Aristotle’s “Historia Animalium” he is said to have closely followed the Latin translation of Michael Scotus from the Arabic. Albertus doubtless owes the praise conferred upon him by Dante less to himself than to his beloved pupil Aquinas, who accompanied him from Cologne to Paris in 1245, and returned with him to Germany in 1248.
“Questi, che m’ è a destra più vicino,
Frate e maestro fummi; ed’ esse Alberto
E’ di Cologna, ed io Thomas d’Aquino.”
“Il Paradiso,” X. 97–99.
Gilbert refers to Albertus in “De Magnete,” Book I. chaps, i. and vi., also in Book II. chap. xxxviii.
References.—“Albert the Great,” by Dr. Joachim Sighart, translated by Rev. Fr. J. A. Dixon, London, 1876; “Journal des Savants” for May 1848 (“D’un ouvrage inédit de Roger Bacon”: Albertus is called Magnus in magia naturali, major in philosophia, maximus in theologia; Tritheim, “Annales Hirsaug.,” Vol. I. p. 592); for May 1851, pp. 284–298 passim; for Nov. and Dec. 1884; for June 1891 (“Traditions ... du Moyen Age”), for Feb. 1892 (“Traductions des ouvrages alchimiques ... arabes; l’alchimie dans Albert le Grand,” pp. 126–128), as well as for March 1892; “Histoire des Sciences,” par. F. M. L. Maupied, Paris, 1847 (Albert le Grand), Vol. II. pp. 1–95; Barthol. Glanvilla, “Liber, de Proprietatibus Rerum,” Book VII; Pellechet, “Cat. Gen. des Incunables,” 1897, pp. 57–81; Bolton, “Chronol. Hist. of Chemistry,” 1897, p. 947; “The Great Schoolmen of the Middle Ages,” by W. J. Townsend, London, 1881, Chap. X. pp. 165–173; “Siger de Brabant et l’Averroïsme Latin au xiiie siècle,” par. Pierre Maudonnet, Fribourg, 1899, pp. li-lii notes passim; Walton and Cotton, “Complete Angler,” New York and London, 1847, Pt. I. p. 62; “New Int. Encycl.,” New York, 1902, Vol. I. p. 279; “Aristotle and the Arabs,” by Wm. M. Sloane, pp. 257–268 of “Classical Studies in Honour of Henry Drissler,” New York, 1894; Sonnini, Buffon, “Minéraux,” VIII. p. 76; Enfield, “History of Philosophy,” Book VII. chap iii.; Humboldt, “Cosmos,” 1849, Vol. II. pp. 617–619; Quétif and Echard, “Scriptor. Ord. Predicat,” Vol. I. p. 171; Brande, “Manual,” 1848, Vol. I. p. 8; Dr. Friedrich Ueberweg, “History of Philosophy,” tr. by Geo. S. Morris, New York, 1885, Vol. I. pp. 436–440; J. B. Hauréau, “La Philos. Scholas.,” Paris, 1850, Vol. II. pp. 1–103; Dr. W. Windelband, “History of Philosophy,” auth. tr. by Jas. H. Tufts, New York, 1853, pp. 311, 313; “Dict. Hist. de la Médecine,” N. F. J. Eloy, Mons, 1778, Vol. I. pp. 63–65; “Christian Schools and Scholars,” Augusta Th. Drane, London, 1867, pp. 69, etc.
Of authors prominently cited by Albertus Magnus, or alluded to in the foregoing, the following accounts are given:
Alfarabius—Alpharabius—Abn Nasr Muhammed ... al Farabi—(A.D. 870–950), celebrated Arabian philosopher, native of Turkestan, one of whose most important works, “Liber de scientiis ...” is an encyclopædia, giving in five chapters a classification of all known sciences. It is said he could speak in as many as seventy languages (J. C. L. S. de Sismondi, “Historical View of the Literature of the South of Europe,” London, 1846, Vol. I. p. 65). He was a most zealous student of Aristotle, and is one of the authors (Aristotle, Avicenna and Al-gazel being the others) from whom David the Jew compiled his work “De Causis.” Of the latter, Albertus gives a long description, and it is likewise cited both by Thomas Aquinas and Bacon, “Opus Majus,” J. H. Bridges, Oxford, 1897, Vol. I. pp. 100–101, who quotes: Jourdain, pp. 112, 138–145, 184–185, and Wüstenfeld, “Geschichte,” Göttingen, 1840.
References.—Larousse, “Dict. Univ.,” Vol. I. p. 195; “Biog. Gen.,” Vol. I. pp. 951–952 and the references therein given; “New Int. Encycl.,” New York, 1902, Vol. I. pp. 329–330; M. Stenischneider, “Al-Farabi,” St. Petersb., 1869; Friedrich Dieterici, “Al-Farabi’s Philosophische Abhandlungen,” Leyden, 1890, and his “Die Philosophie der Araber,” Leyden, 1892, 1895; Dr. Friedrich Ueberweg, “History of Philosophy,” tr. by Geo. S. Morris, New York, 1885, Vol. I. pp. 407, 411–412.
Al-gazel—Al-Ghazzali—(1058–1111), another prominent Arabian philosopher, who was for a long time professor of theology in the Bagdad University, and became the ruler of the Sufis or Mystics, in whose behalf he travelled extensively.[15]
The biography in “La Grande Encyclopédie,” Vol. XVIII. pp. 899–900, gives a full account of his most important works and several valuable references, his principal book being “The Destruction of the Philosophers,” which called forth a reply in one of the two most important works of Averroës, entitled “The Destruction of Destruction.”
Tholuck says: “If ever a man hath deserved the name, Ghazzali was truly a divine, and he may justly be placed on a level with Origen [Fr. Dietericii, “Die Philosophie der Araber,” Leipzig, 1876, pp. 28–31], so remarkable was he for learning and ingenuity, and gifted with such a rare faculty for the skilful and worthy exposition of doctrine.”
References.—“Encycl. Britann.,” ninth ed., Vol. I. p. 510; “New Int. Encycl.,” Vol. I. p. 337; “The Alchemy of Happiness,” by Mohammed Al-Ghazzali, tr. of Henry Guy Homes, Albany, 1873, pp. 6–7, also Dr. Friedrich Ueberweg, “History of Philosophy, tr. by Geo. S. Morris, New York, 1885, Vol. I. pp. 407 and 413–414.
Alexander of Hales, so called because he made his studies at the Monastery of Hales in Gloucestershire (d. 1245), called “Doctor Doctorum” or “Doctor Irrefragabilis,” also “Theologorum Monarcha,” was a celebrated English theologian. He became a noted professor of philosophy and then a lecturer among the Franciscans, being succeeded in turn by his pupils, John of Rochelle (who died in 1271) and John Fidanza, better known as Bonaventura (1221–1274). He was the first scholastic acquainted with the whole of the Aristotelian works and with the Arabian commentaries upon them. The only authentic work of his is the ponderous “Summa Universæ Theologiæ” (best edition, Venice, 1576), much of the substance and even the text of which is said to be found in the “Summa” of Aquinas and in the “Speculum Morale” of Vincent de Beauvais.
References.—“Dict. of Nat. Biog.,” London, 1885, Vol. I. p. 271; “La Grande Encycl.,” Vol. II. p. 121; Fleury, “Hist. Eccles.,” Vol. XX; Du Boulay, “Hist. de l’univ. de Paris,” Vol. I.; Stoeckl, “Geschichte d. Phil. d. Mittelalters,” 1865, Vol. II. pp. 317–326; “Chambers’s Encycl.,” 1888, Vol. I. p. 148; Ninth “Encycl. Britann.,” Vol. XXI. p. 427; “Dict. of Philos. and Psychol.,” by J. M. Baldwin, New York, 1901; Vol. I. pp. 30, 124; Wadding, “Annales Ord. Min.”; “New Int. Encycl.,” New York, 1902, Vol. I. pp. 321–322; Fabricius, “Bibl. Lat. mediæ et inf. ætat.,” Vol. I. p. 1; “Biog. Gén.,” Vol. I. pp. 923–927; J. B. Hauréau, “Hist. de la Philos. Scholastique,” 1880, Vol. I. part ii. pp. 131–141, or the 1850 Paris ed., Vol. I. p. 418; Dr. Friedrich Ueberweg, “History of Philosophy,” tr. by Geo. S. Morris, New York, 1885, Vol. I. pp. 433–434; Thos. Fuller, “Church History of Britain,” London, 1837, Vol. I. pp. 398–402.
Avempace—Abn Bekr Muhammed Ibn Yahga, Arabic philosopher, physician and poet (d. 1138), introduced the peripatetic philosophy into Andalusia, and wrote commentaries on Aristotle, in addition to a book, “Conduct of the Individual,” alluded to by Averroës, likewise several works upon medicine and music.
References.—“The History of Philosophy” of Dr. Friedrich Ueberweg, tr. by Geo. S. Morris, New York, 1885, Vol. I. p. 414 (Munk, “Mélanges de Philosophie,” pp. 383–410); “New Int. Encycl.,” New York, 1902, Vol. II. p. 281; Brockelmann, “Geschichte der Arabischen Litteratur”; James Gow, “A Short History of Greek Mathematics,” Oxford, 1884, pp. 203–205 for Arabic learning in Spain.
Averroës—Muhammed Ibn Ahmed Ibn-Roschd, “the commentator,” “the last great thinker of the Moslem world in the West” (1120–1198), was an illustrious Moorish philosopher and physician best known by his commentaries and paraphrases upon Aristotle. It is said Averroës was recommended to the Calif as the fittest person to expound the works of Aristotle and make them accessible to all (“History of Classical Scholarship,” J. E. Sandys, Cambridge, 1903, p. 541).
References.—Renan, “Averroës et l’Averroïsme,” Paris, 1852; “Dict. of Philos. and Psychology,” by J. M. Baldwin, New York, 1901, p. 96; “Journal des Savants” for Feb. 1892, pp. 118–126 passim; Antonii, “Bibl. Hisp. Vetus,” Vol. II. pp. 240–248; Wüstenfeld, “Geschichte d’ Arab. A. V. N.,” 1840; “Engl. Cycl.,” Vol. I. pp. 448–449; Eloy, “Dict. Hist. de la Médecine,” Vol. I. pp. 220–221; Dr. Friedrich Ueberweg, “History of Philosophy,” tr. by Geo. S. Morris, New York, 1885, Vol. I. pp. 407–408, 415–417; Dr. W. Windelband, “History of Philosophy,” auth. tr. by Jas. H. Tufts, New York, 1893, pp. 317, 338; “Dictionnaire des Sciences Philosophiques,” par une société de savants, Paris, 1852, Vol. III. pp. 157–172.
“Euclide geometra e Tolommeo,
Ippocrate, Avicenna, e Galieno
Averrois che ’l gran comento feo.”
(Dante, “Divina Commedia,” Inferno, Canto IV.)
Augusta Th. Drane places Averroës at the head of all Arabic interpreters of Aristotle, and incidentally says it would be hard to determine his religion, for he scoffed alike at Christianity, Judaism and Mahometanism.
Avicenna—Abohalis, Ibn Sina, Al Rayis or “the chief”—(980–1037), “the greatest thinker of the Moslem world in the East,” a native of Aschena, near Bokhara, was the most celebrated physician of his day. In the “Journal des Savants” for March 1892, “l’Alchimie d’Avicenne” is very extensively treated of at pp. 179–189, and Avicenna is said (“Journal des Savants” for February 1892, pp. 118–128) to be the alchemist most frequently alluded to in the “Speculum Naturale” of Vincent de Beauvais. His writings were so highly esteemed that the Sultan of Egypt ordered them to be translated by the celebrated Jewish Rabbi, Maimonides—Moses Ben Maimon—(born at Cordova, in Spain, about A.D. 1132).
References.—Casiri, “Bibl. Arab. Hispan.,” Vol. I. p. 268; Hottinger, “Bibl. Quadrip.,” 1664, pp. 256, 261; “Dict. des Sciences Philosophiques,” Paris, 1852, Vol. III. pp. 172–178; S. Klein, “Dissertatio,” 1846; Houzeau et Lancaster, “Bibl. Gen.,” Vol. I. pt. i. pp. 469–470; “The Edinburgh Encycl.,” 1830, Vol. III. p. 107; “Engl. Cycl.,” Vol. I. pp. 449–450; Gilbert, “De Magnete,” Book I. chaps. i., viii., xv. and Book II. chap. ii.; Eloy, “Dict. Hist. de la Médecine,” Vol. I. pp. 223–227; Dr. Friedrich Ueberweg, “History of Philosophy,” tr. by Geo. S. Morris, New York, 1885, Vol. I. pp. 407, 412–413; Dr. W. Windelband, “History of Philosophy,” auth. tr. by Jas. H. Tufts, New York, 1893, p. 317; “New Gen. Biog. Dict.,” London, 1850, Vol. XII. p. 43; “Dict. of Philosophy and Psychology,” by J. M. Baldwin, New York, 1901, Vol. I. p. 97; “Lectures on Metaphysics and Logic,” by Sir Wm. Hamilton, London, 1860, Vol. II. pp. 167, 171; “Historical View of the Literature of the South of Europe,” by J. C. L. S. de Sismondi, London, 1846, Vol. I.
Duns Scotus, John, “Doctor Subtilis” (born about 1270, died in 1308), a very prominent schoolman, who was educated at Oxford, entered the Order of St. Francis, and became one of the great founders of scholastic thought. But little is known as to his origin, except that a monument, erected to his memory at Cologne during the year 1533, bears the following: “Scotia me genuit, Anglia me suscepit, Gallia me docuit, Colonia (Germania) me tenet.”
As shown by Luc. Wadding in his “J. Duns-Scoti Opera,” twelve volumes, published at Lyons in 1639, his works are quite numerous, the most important consisting of questions and commentaries on the writings of Aristotle and on the “Sentences” of Peter Lombard.
Joannes Duns Scotus is very frequently referred to by Dr. W. Windelband (“History of Philosophy,” auth. tr. by Jas. H. Tufts, New York, 1893, pp. 311, 314–315, 321–326, 344), and is mentioned as “the acutest and deepest thinker of the Christian Middle Ages, who brought the germs of the philosophy of the will, contained in Augustine’s system, to their first important development, and so from the metaphysical side gave the impulse for a complete change in the direction of philosophical thought.”
References.—“Dict. of Nat. Biog.,” London, 1888, Vol. XVI. pp. 216–220; Ritter’s “Geschichte der Philosophie”; Dr. Friedrich Ueberweg, “History of Philosophy,” tr. by Geo. S. Morris, New York, 1885, Vol. I. pp. 452–457; Larousse, “Dict. Univ.,” Vol. VI. p. 1398, containing an extensive list of references; Alfred Weber, “History of Philosophy,” New York, 1896, pp. 246–252 (tr. of Frank Thilly); “Biog. Gén.,” Vol. XV. pp. 256–257; “La Grande Encycl.,” Vol. XV. pp. 71–72; Pluanski, “Thèse sur Duns Scot,” Paris, 1887; “The Great Schoolmen of the Middle Ages,” W. J. Townsend, London, 1881, “Duns Scotus,” Chap. XV.; J. B. Hauréau, “La Philosophie Scholastique,” Paris, 1850, Vol. II. pp. 307–417. Consult also the biographies written by Ferchius, Berti, Caveili and Veglensis, and, for a complete exposition of his system, C. Werner, “Die Scholastik des Späteren Mittelalters,” Vienna, 1881, Vol. I; “Illustrations of the History of Medieval Thought,” by R. L. Poole, London, 1884.
A.D. 1254.—Bacon (Roger), “the most remarkable man in the most remarkable century of the Middle Ages” (E. H. Plumptre, 1866), sometimes called Friar Bacon (1214–1294), a Franciscan monk of Ilchester, who devoted himself to the study of science at Oxford and Paris and “whose deep penetration into the mysteries of nature justly entitled him to the appellation of “The Wonderful Doctor,” treats of the magnet and of its properties at pp. 383–384 of his “Opus Minus” (J. S. Brewer, “Fr. R. Bacon,” London, 1859), and dwells upon the loadstone as a miraculum in parte notum.
Bacon is also the author of many other works, the most important of which are his “Opus Majus” and “Opus Tertium” (first published in English respectively in 1733 and 1859), the last named having been originally written out for Pope Clement IV and intended to serve as a preamble to the “Opus Minus” and “Opus Majus,” although it was later than either in the date of its composition (Brewer, op. cit. p. xliv). Leland has said that it is easier to collect the leaves of the Sybil than the titles of all of Bacon’s works. At pp. 218–222, Vol. III. of the ninth edition “Encyclopædia Britannica” will be found a synopsis of the six parts into which Jebb divided the “Opus Majus” (pronounced by Whewell “at once the Encyclopædia and the Organum of the thirteenth century”), and likewise an account of his other works, besides numerous references to leading authorities.
In the “Opus Tertium,” the last of the series of three which, it is said, were all completed in about eighteen months, he speaks more than once of A.D. 1267 as being the then current year. This happens to be but two years prior to the date of the epistle of Pierre Pélerin de Maricourt, the great experimentalist (Petrus Peregrinus), whom he commends (p. lxxv) in the following words: “For there are only two perfect mathematicians, Master John of London[16] and Master Peter of Maricourt, the Picard ... who is worth more than any of them ... of whom I have fully written in my ‘Opus Minus’ and of whom I shall write more in its proper place.” Of this Master Peter, whom he calls one of his most illustrious pupils, he further says that, being “struck with the genius that dawned in his countenance,” he took him under his protection from his fifteenth year and instructed him so carefully that he outstripped all of his contemporaries both at Oxford and at Paris. “There is no one,” adds he, “who knows so much of the root of Philosophy ...” and one who, “through experiment, gains such knowledge of things natural, medical, chemical; indeed, of everything in the heavens or earth.”
Gilbert states (“De Magnete,” Book I. chap. i.) that many believe the work of Peter Peregrinus on the magnet owes its origin to the opinions of Roger Bacon. And in the Appendix I to Brewer’s work—p. 537, chap. vi. “De Experimentis Mirabilibus”—will be found Bacon’s views fully exposed on the operations of the magnet.
References.—“Fratris Rogeri Bacon, O. M. Opus Majus,” S. Jebb, Londini, 1733; “L’Alchimie et les Alchimistes,” Paris, 1860, by Louis Figuier, who, at p. 97, calls Roger Bacon La plus vaste intelligence que l’Angleterre ait possédée; “Essai Théorique ... des connaissances humaines,” par G. Tiberghien, Bruxelles, 1844, Vol. I. pp. 388–389; Dr. Geo. Miller, “History Philosophically Illustrated,” London, 1849, Vol. II. p. 112; Humboldt, “Cosmos,” New York, 1860, Vol. II. pp. 43, 229, 241, 245, 318; “Journal des Savants” for March, April, May and August 1848, also for December 1859 and February 1891; “Origin, Progress and Destiny of the English Language and Literature,” by John A. Weisse, New York, 1879, pp. 28, 233–234, 236, 424; “History of Latin Christianity,” by Henry Hart Milman, London, 1857, Vol. VI. pp. 279–303; “Opus Majus,” by John Henry Bridges, Oxford, 1897, Vol. I. pp. xxv-xxvi, and Vol. II. pp. 203–206, containing a valuable tabulated list of facts relating to Bacon’s life; “Roger Bacon,” par Emile Charles, Paris, 1861, pp. 15–19, 339–391; “De Bibliorum Textibus,” by Dr. Hody; Wm. Whewell, “History of the Inductive Sciences,” 1858, Vol. I. pp. 512–522, or 1859, Vol. I. pp. 209–210, 245–246, 512–522, Vol. II. p. 55; also “Philosophy of the Inductive Sciences,” London, 1840, Vol. II. pp. 323–337; “The Philosophical Magazine,” Vol. XII. pp. 327–337; Enfield, Book VII. chap. iii.; “Catalogue Général des livres imprimés de la Bibliothèque Nationale,” Paris, 1901, Vol. VI. pp. 256–259; “Encyclopædia Britannica,” Edinburgh, 1842, seventh edition. Vol. I. as per Index at p. 17; “Les Editions de Roger Bacon” in the “Journal des Savants” for July 1905.
Brunetto Latini. “Li livres dou Trésor.”
Page taken from the 15th century Ms. in the Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris.
A.D. 1260.—Brunetto Latini, b. 1230, d. 1294, “maestro del divino poeta Dante,” celebrated Florentine encyclopædist, composes his “Tesoro,” rewritten in French (“Livres dou Trésor”), wherein he speaks clearly of the compass as at some time likely to be useful at sea. But he adds: “No master mariner dares to use it, lest he should fall under the supposition of being a magician; nor would even the sailors venture themselves out to sea under his command if he took with him an instrument which carries so great an appearance of being constructed under the influence of some infernal spirit.”
The “Tesoro” is said to be a kind of abridgment of the Bible, of Pliny, of Solinus, of the Ethics of Aristotle, of the rhetorical writings of Cicero and of the political works of Aristotle, Plato and Xenophon (“New Biog. Dict.,” London, 1850, Vol. IX. p. 205). It would be well to consult “La Table Générale des bulletins ... Sociétés Savantes,” par M. Octave Teissier, Paris, 1873, p. 44, regarding the collection of different manuscripts of Brunetto’s extensive work.
References.—Davis, “The Chinese,” 1844, Vol. III. p. xi; Venanson, “Boussole,” pp. 75, 148–154; Azuni, “Boussole,” p. 139; Klaproth, “Boussole,” pp. 45–46; “Journal des Savants” for January 1865, also for January and February 1880; “The Monthly Magazine” for June 1802; Libri, “Hist. des Sciences Mathématiques,” Paris, 1838, Vol. II. pp. 64, 152–156.
A.D. 1265–1321.—Dante—Durante—(Alighieri), illustrious Italian poet, regarded as the greatest poetical genius that flourished between the Augustan and Elizabethan ages, composed, during his exile, the “Divina Commedia,” which was the first poem written in the Italian language. In Canto XII. vv. 28–30 of his “Paradiso,” translated by Dr. Plumptre, he thus alludes to the mariner’s compass:
“Then from the heart of one of those new lights,
There came a voice which made me turn to see,
E’en as the star the needle’s course incites.”
Guido Guinicelli (1240–1276), priest and scholar, and whom Dante considered not only the greatest of living Bolognese poets, but his master in poetry (Note: “Purg.,” XXVI. Vol. I. p. 327, v. 92) refers to the nautical compass in nearly the same terms as Dante (“Rime. Ant.,” p. 295). He adds: “The mountains of loadstone give the virtue to the air of attracting iron, but, because it (the loadstone) is far off, (it) wishes to have the help of a similar stone to make it (the virtue) work, and to direct the needle toward the star” (P. L. Ginguené, “Hist. Lit. d’Italie,” Vol. I. p. 413; Guido delle Colonne—Io Colonna da Messina—Mandella Lett. p. 81, Florence, 1856).
At pp. 35 and 130 of Bertelli’s “Pietro Peregrino di Maricourt,” Roma, 1868, Memoria prima, appear verses said to be by Guinicelli and by Guido delle Colonne, judge of Messina, who flourished about 1250, and which are translated literally into English as follows:
“In those parts under foreign skies
Are the mountains of loadstone,
Which give power to the air
To attract iron, but, because distant,
It requires to have assistance from similar stones,
To bring it into use,
And direct the needle towards the star.
The learned relate that the loadstone
Could not attract
Iron by its power,
Were it not that the air between them aids;
Although the calamite is a stone,
The other existing stones
Are not so powerful
To attract, because they have not the influence.”
The “Paradiso,” translated by A. J. Butler, London, 1885, Canto XII. v. 29, reads: “Si mosse voce, che l’ago (needle) alla stella,” and Fazio degli Uberti in the “Dittamondo” (about 1360) has “Quel gran disio, che mi, traeva addietro come ago a calamita” (III. 2).
References.—Hœfer, “Nouv. Biog. Gén.,” Vol. XIII. pp. 21–50, the last-named page containing an unusual number of citations; “Biblogr. Dantesca,” by Colomb de Batines, Prato, 1845–1846; “La Grande Encyclopédie,” Vol. XIII. pp. 887–901, embracing many additional references; the note at p. 154 of Plumptre’s “Dante,” also Humboldt’s “Cosmos,” 1849, Vol. II. p. 629; Libri, “Hist. des Sc. Math.,” Paris, 1838, Vol. II. pp. 164, etc.; Frederic C. Harrison, “The New Calendar of Great Men,” London, 1892, pp. 310–315.
Dante Alighieri. “La Divina Commedia,” Mantuae 1472, the first page of what is by many regarded as the oldest edition of the earliest known poem written in the Italian language.
Now in the Bibliothèque Sainte Geneviève, Paris.
A.D. 1266.—It is shown by Th. Torffæus (Latin for Thormodr Torfason), an Icelandic scholar (b. 1636, d. 1719), who published “Historia Rerum Norvegicarum” (Hafniæ, 1711, IV. c. 4, p. 345), that at this date the northern nations were acquainted with the mariner’s compass. In the “History of Norway” here alluded to, he mentions the fact that the poem of the Icelandic historian, Jarl Sturla (Snorri Sturlason) written in 1213, on the death of the Swedish Count Byerges, was rewarded with a box containing a mariner’s compass.
References.—Suhm, “In effigien Torfæi, una cum Torfænis”; “Nouv. Biogr. Générale de Hœfer,” Vol. XLV. p. 495; “New Gen. Biog. Dict.,” London, 1850, Vol. XII. p. 263; Jessen, “Norge,” pp. 83–99; Larousse, “Dict. Univ.,” Vol. XV. p. 312; Michaud, “Biog. Univ.,” Vol. XLI. p. 683.
A.D. 1269.—Peregrinus (Petrus), Pierre Pélerin de Maricourt, Méhéricourt—Magister Petrus de Maharnecuria, Picardus—doubtless a Crusader, was, as Roger Bacon tells us (“Opus Tertium,” cap. xi) the only one, besides Master John of London, who, at this period, could be deemed a thoroughly accomplished, perfect mathematician, and was one who understood the business of experimenting in natural philosophy, alchemy and medicine better than any one else in Western Europe.
Peregrinus is the author of a letter or epistle, “Written in camp at the Siege of Lucera (delle Puglie—Nucerræ) in the year of our Lord 1269, on the 8th day of August,” addressed to his Amicorum intime, a soldier, by the name of Sygerus de Fontancourt—Foucaucourt—Foucancort.
Of this epistle, which is the earliest known work of experimental science, there are but few reliable complete manuscript copies. Most of these have been very ably analyzed by P. D. Timoteo Bertelli Barnabita in the exhaustive Memoirs published by him in Rome during 1868, and still better detailed by Dr. Silvanus P. Thompson in his several valuable printed researches and lectures on the subject, but there has been of it only one printed issue in book form, that of the Lindau physician, A. P. Gasser, which appeared at Augsburg during 1558.
Several attempts at translation have been made, notably by Guillaume Libri (“Histoire des Sciences Mathématiques ...” Paris, 1838, Vol. II. p. 487) who admitted that, with the aid of several paleographers, he could not decipher many of the abbreviated faint characters existing in the Bibliothèque Nationale manuscript (No. 7378A in quarto, at folio 67), and by Tiberius Cavallo, who does scarcely better with the Leyden copy (Fol. Cod. No. 227) which was discovered by him, and but a portion of which he transcribes in the supplement to his “Treatise on Magnetism,” London, 1800, pp. 299–320. A translation was also made by Brother Arnold, of the La Salle Institute in Troy, N.Y., and published during 1904, but the most meritorious version now existing is the one entitled “Done into English by Silvanus P. Thompson from the printed Latin versions of Gasser 1558, Bertelli 1868, and Hellmann 1898, and amended by reference to the manuscript copy in his possession, formerly amongst the Phillipps’ manuscripts, dated 1391.” This translation, “printed in the year 1902, in the Caxton type, to the number of 250 copies,” reflects very great credit upon Prof. Thompson, who has given us such a faithful interpretation of the original work as would naturally be expected at his hands, and who has, besides, rubricated this right royal little volume and caused it to be issued in one of the most attractive typographical fashions of the Chiswick Press.
The Hellmann 1898 Berlin version just alluded to, which appeared in “Neudrucke von Schriften und Karten ...” No. 10 (Rara Magnetica), contains a photographic reproduction of the Augsburg 1558 title-page, and, it may be added, the volume of Phillipps’ manuscripts, of which Prof. Thompson became the fortunate possessor, includes one of Chaucer’s treatises on the Astrolabe, besides the Peregrinus’ manuscript in question.
During the year 1562 much of the original epistle was pilfered by Joannes Taisnier Hannonius, who badly condensed and deformed it and incorporated it as new matter, conjointly with some papers of his own, in a book entitled “Oposculum ... de Natura Magnetis et ejus effectibus ...” Coloniæ, 1562; and that much was translated “into Englishe” by Richarde Eden, London, about 1579, under title of “A very necessarie and profitable booke concerning navigation.”
Much has been said at different times regarding the contents of the above-named epistle, the full title of the Paris MS. No. 7378 of which reads
“Epistola Petri Peregrini de Maricourt ad Sygerum de Foucaucourt militem de magnete,”
but no résumé of it could better be given than by quoting here its first page, which has been translated as follows:
This treatise on the magnet contains two parts, of which Part I is complete in ten chapters, and Part II in three.
Of Part I: Chap. I states the object of the work;
Chap. II, of what the investigator in this line of work should be;
Chap. III, of a knowledge of the loadstone;
Chap. IV, of the science of the discovery of the parts of the loadstone;
Chap. V, of the source of the discovery of poles in the loadstone—which of them is the north and which the south;
Chap. VI, in what manner a magnet attracts a magnet;
Chap. VII, how iron touched with the magnet turns towards the poles of the globe;
Chap. VIII, in what manner a magnet attracts iron;
Chap. IX, why the northern part attracts the southern part, and the converse;
Chap. X, of the inquiry whence the magnet derives the natural power it possesses.
Petrus Peregrinus. “Epistola ... de Magnete.”
The earliest known treatise of experimental science, now in the Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris.
Of Part II: Chap. I, on the construction of an instrument (floating compass) by which the azimuth of the sun and moon, and of any star above the horizon, can be ascertained;
Chap. II, on the construction of a better instrument (pivoted compass) for like purpose;
Chap. III, on the construction of a wheel for perpetual motion.
An analyzation of each chapter in turn will show how satisfactorily Peregrinus has developed, in connected series, all of the early experiments upon which are based his theories of the loadstone.