"I heard it said that the captains in the Indian seas substitute for the needle and reed a hollow iron fish, magnetized, so that, when placed in the water, it points to the north with its head and to the south with its tail. The reason that the fish swims, not sinks, is that metallic bodies, even the heaviest, float when hollow, and when they displace a quantity of water greater than their own weight."

It may fairly be inferred, from this passage, that, at the time spoken of, (1240,) the practice was already of long standing in this quarter, and that the needle and its polarity had been long known and employed at sea. That is, the Arabs had become familiar with the loadstone in 1240, while Friar Bacon regarded it, in England, as a huge curiosity in 1260,—twenty years afterwards. The priority of the invention would seem to be thus incontestably proven for the Arabs. But we shall see speedily that it derived its origin from a region situated still farther to the east, and many centuries earlier.

A famous Chinese dictionary, terminated in the year 121 of our era, thus defines the word magnet:—"The name of a stone which gives direction to a needle." This is quoted in numerous modern dictionaries. One published during the Tsin dynasty—that is, between 265 and 419—states that ships guided their course to the south by means of the magnet. The Chinese word for magnet—Tchi nan—signifies, Indicator of the South. It was natural for the Chinese, when they first saw a needle point both north and south, to take the Antarctic pole for the principal point of attraction, for with them the south had always been the first of the cardinal points,—the emperor's throne and all the Government edifices invariably being built to face the south. A Chinese work of authority, composed about the year 1000, contains this passage:—"Fortune-tellers rub the point of a needle with a loadstone to give it the power of indicating the south."

A medical natural history, published in China in 1112, speaks even of the variation of the needle,—a phenomenon first noticed in Europe by Christopher Columbus in 1492:—"When," it says, "a point of iron is touched by a loadstone, it receives the power of indicating the south: still, it declines towards the east, and does not point exactly to the south." This observation, made at the beginning of the twelfth century, was confirmed by magnetic experiments made at Pekin, in 1780, by a Frenchman; only the latter, finding the variation to be from the north, set it down as from 2° to 2° 30' to the west, while the Chinese, persisting in calling it a variation from the south, set it down as being from 2° to 2° 30' to the east.

Thus, the Chinese, who were acquainted with the polarity of a magnetized needle as early as the year 121, and who noticed the variation in 1112, may be safely supposed to have employed it at sea in the long voyages which they made in the seventh and eighth centuries, the route of which has come down to us. Their vessels sailed from Canton, through the Straits of Malacca, to the Malabar coast, to the mouths of the Indus and the Euphrates. It is difficult to believe that, aware of the use to which the needle might be applied, they did not so apply it.

While thus claiming for the Chinese the first knowledge and application of the polarity of the needle, we may say, incidentally, that it is now certain that they made numerous other discoveries of importance long before the Europeans. They knew the attractive power of amber in the first century of our era, and a Chinese author said, in 324, "The magnet attracts iron, and amber attracts mustard-seed." They ascribed the tides to the influence of the moon in the ninth century. Printing was invented in the province of Chin about the year 920, and gunpowder would seem to have been made there long before Berthold Schwartz mixed it in 1330. Still, it is not necessary to resort to the argument of analogy to support the claims of the Chinese to this admirable invention: the direct evidence, as we have rehearsed it, is amply sufficient.

CHINESE JUNK.

A century ago, Flavio Gioia, a captain or pilot of Amalfi, in the kingdom of Naples, was recognised throughout Europe as the true inventor of the compass. He lived in the beginning of the fourteenth century, and biographers have even fixed the date of the memorable invention at the year 1303. The principal foundation for this assertion was the following line from a poem by Antonio of Bologna, who lived but a short time after Gioia:—

"Prima dedit nautis usam magnetis Amalphis."
Amalfi first gave to sailors the use of the magnet.