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.”