The pillars of Hercules

by David Urquhart

These writers conceive that they have settled the question by tracing the invention from the Chinese to the Arabs. This at least is established, that the Chinese had the compass at the period of the greatness of the Phœnicians, and if they did not use it on the ocean, traversing Tartary with it, brought it within reach of the Phœnicians, who, as I shall show, knew the stations through Tartary to China.

Now, our instrument offered intrinsic evidence of a parentage wholly distinct from the Chinese.

The north is the leading point. The axis of the globe cut at right angles by the equator, gives the four points which we term cardinal, which are then subdivided into eight, sixteen, and thirty-two (the latter appears to be comparatively modern). These constitute the points which serve the mariner, and are employed in directing the course of the vessel and steering it. The circle is then divided, according to the astronomic measurement of the globe, into 360 degrees.

These Points and Degrees are figured on a card affixed to the needle, and revolving with it on a pivot, so that the helmsman has the circle of the earth before him, and has to bring the vessel’s head (marked by a line in the cup in which the card and needle float) to that point of the circle towards which he is directed to steer.

In every respect, save the polarity of the needle, the Chinese compass differs. The south, taking the negative for the positive polarity, is made the leading point: it is not marked by any mouassola or figure, but painted red. There is no cross, and consequently no centre. The needle bisects merely the instrument. There are no cardinal points.[148] The first subdivision is into eight, the second into twenty-four; avoiding sixteen—that essential number of augury and of the Hindoos,[149] &c. This is the nautical part of the instrument, and occupies four of the concentric circles that are traced on the broad plate which surrounds the instrument; then succeed ten other circles, through which the radii of the first four are not continued, and where figure a variety of words and divisions, which no one has explained, and which the highest authorities confess their inability to comprehend. The astronomic degrees on the outer circle are not equal to one another, and amount to about three hundred and eighty. Although the needle revolves, it is not on a pivot, but on a point which, like the letter T, descends into the wood of the box, and there turns in a socket. No card is affixed on it: it traverses as an index, pointing to the scale of the circle traced on the box. That the Chinese knew the variation of the needle, and had accurately fixed that of Canton, expressing it by the converse signs, has been established by M. Klaproth, and might have led him to doubt the theory he has so boldly asserted, of ours being derived from theirs. Thus, the Chinese compass differs from ours toto cœlo, there not being a single point in which, even by accident, we have hit upon the same method. A junk and a Phœnician galley, or an English collier, are not more dissimilar: both sail the seas, and both direct the ship—there all resemblance begins and ends.

The Chinese instrument had been used on land for many centuries before the Christian era. It had been adopted in navigation at least in the third century of our era. It existed, therefore, in the form in which we now see it, long antecedent to its use in the West. It is as serviceable as ours for every purpose of navigation. Why should we have reversed the whole order? How could we have done so with that uniformity which prevails in all the countries of the West?

But there is still, if possible, a stronger argument. The needle, when first used by the Arabs, received only a temporary polarity; the Chinese give to theirs a permanent polarity. The former process was, therefore, a step in the discovery: had it been borrowed they would have at once used the perfect method. The process is thus described in 1242 by Boulak Kibdjaki.

“They take a cup of water, which they shelter from the wind; they then take a needle, which they fix in a peg of wood (reed), or a straw, so as to form a cross. They then take the magnes and turn round for some time above the cup, moving from left to right, the needle following. They then withdraw the magnes, after which the needle stands still and points north and south.”[150]

This description, confirmed by the authorities cited below, can leave no doubt that we have arrived at the same end as the Chinese by a different road. The invention of Flavio di Gioja may have consisted in giving to the needle permanent polarity: the next step would be of course to fix it on a pivot, which again differs from the Chinese.

I beg particular attention to this manner of using the instrument by the Arabs, as by it we shall be subsequently enabled to interpret the Greek myths. Here we have the compass consisting of a needle, a cup, and a stone, carried separately, and brought together when consulted. The Arabs shut themselves out as the inventors—we have shut out the Chinese. The distribution of the circle must have come to the Arabs, together with the magnet and needle: it could only come from ancient augury. The officer and priest, whose title has been given to the science, marked out all bounds for consecration, building, or other purposes, and commenced by drawing, on the spot where he stood, the line of the axis of the globe, the cardo crossing it by the synatorial or decumonus. In the augurial operations the terrestrial and celestial globes were made the counterparts of each other, and the heavens were distributed into sixteen parts.[151]