[138] Those assumed are “Buxus, Buxolus, Buxola, Bussola, Boussole.”—Menage. “Buso, Ital. eye of a needle.”—Covarruvias. “Boxel, English.”—Pouqens. “Bruxa, Spanish, sorcerer.” “Boursole, French, little purse.”—P. Labbe.
[139] This figure being now a Fleur de Lis, the French claim the invention. The profound Germans surrender it to them as a national property. Voltaire, however, remarks that the Fleur de Lis was the cognizance of Naples at the time of Flavio de Gioja.
[140] The term “Mouassola” is preserved to this day among the Mussulmans in connection with their religious edifices. It signifies the square open space corresponding with the Fane of the Etruscans, in which the two festivals of the Bairam are held, and where consequently the Mussulman sacrifice is performed. The connection is evident, but how it is to be established I am not at present prepared to say. Cf. Hariri. Chresth. Arabe, i. 191; iii. 167.
[141] I picked up this little work at a book-stall of Cadiz. A Spanish translation is printed, page for page with the Arabic, and thus it was that I fell upon the word. It so happened that I chanced on it midway between the two seas. Consult Khabil Dhaheri. Apud Ch. Arabe, ii. 13 et seq.
[142] Tiraboschi, iv. 1. xi. § 35; Andrea, Orig. D’Ogni Letter.; Gueguenné, Hist. de la lit. Italienne, iv.
[143] Consult El Edrisi on the “Straits of Babel-Mandel,” the “Arabian Book of Stones,” as quoted by Bailak Kibdjak, the “Treasury of Wonders,” as quoted by El Edrisi; Ptolom. i. vi. 2; Palladius, de Gentibus Indiæ; S. Ambrosius, de Moribus Brachmanorum; Anonymus, de Bragmanibus: ed. Bissæus, Lond. 1665.
[144] P. Martini (Hist. p. 106), P. Amiot (Abrégé chronologique de l’histoire de la Chine, contained in the collection of the Mémoires sur les Chinois, tom. xiii.), Mailla (Hist. Gener. de la Chine, Paris, 1777, tom. i. p. 317), P. Gaubil (Astronomie Chinoise), Sir G. Staunton (Embassy to China), M. Roding (Dict. Polyglotte de Marine), W. Josh. Hager (Dissert. sur la Boussole), contend that from time immemorial the Chinese were in possession of the magnet. That the compass came from the Chinese to the Europeans, through the Arabs, is maintained by Bergeron (Hist. des Sarrazins, p. 119). Riccioli (Geogr. et Hydrogr. Ven. 1672.) Mention is made of the compass afloat in the third and in the fifth centuries of our era. “There were then (Tsin dynasty) ships directed to the south by the needle.”—Poi-wen-jeu-fou, or Great Encyclopedia.
[145] Arago, in the Annales de Chimie, t. xxxii. p. 214; Brewster, Treatise on Magnetism, 1837, p. 111; Baumgarten, in the Zeitschrift für Phys. und Mathem. bd. ii. s. 419.
[146] Humboldt, Examen critique de l’Histoire de la Géographie, t. iii. p. 36.
[147] Cosmos, vol. i. p. 169.