It may be well to record here that Voltaire was “confessedly the foremost name, the acknowledged head of European literature of his time.” Goethe calls him “the greatest literary man of all time, the most astonishing creation of the Author of Nature” (“Nouvelle Biographie,” Vol. XLV. i. p. 445). Though not the first French author who wrote on the wonderful discoveries of Newton, he was the first to make them extensively known on the Continent.
References.—Sir Harris Nicolas, “Hist. Roy. Navy,” 1847, Vol. II. p. 180; Humboldt, “Cosmos,” 1859, Vol. V. p. 57, note; Whewell, “Hist. of the Ind. Sc.,” 1859, Vol. I. p. 431; “Crit. and Misc. Essays,” by Thomas Carlyle, Boston, 1860, pp. 5–78. “La France Littéraire,” par Joseph M. Quérard, Vol. X. Paris, 1839, pp. 276–457, devotes as many as 182 pages to bibliographical notices of Voltaire and names 1131 publications written by or relating to him, whilst in Quérard’s “Bibliographie Voltairienne” will be found a still more extended account at pp. i-xxxvi and at pp. 1–84.
The Mariner’s Compass
Regarding the mariner’s compass, it can scarcely be doubted, from what precedes, that it came to the knowledge of Europeans in the manner indicated under the A.D. 1190 date.
Baïlik of Kibdjak—Baüak Kibdjaki—spoke of its use as generally well known by the Syrian navigators, who constructed it in exactly the same way as did the Chinese (A.D. 1111–1117 and A.D. 1282), and which resembled the compass seen by Brunetto Latini in the possession of Friar Bacon while in England prior to the year 1260 (Knight, “Mech. Dict.,” Vol. II. p. 1397).
Edrisi (Idrisi or Aldrisi), the most eminent of the Arabian geographers, is said by Boucher to have given a confirmed account of the polarity of the magnet, the early knowledge of which by the Arabs has been shown conclusively by Jacob de Vitry, Vincent de Beauvais and Albertus Magnus.
Signor P. T. Bertelli, who has been mentioned under the A.D. 1190 date, could not find any reference, however remote, to the directive property of the loadstone throughout a careful examination of Latin and Greek works dating from the sixth century B.C. to the tenth century A.D. He admits that the directive property was known to the Chinese, who had made rude floating needle compasses before the beginning of the Christian era, although these compasses are likely to have been brought home by the Amalfian sailors, who are, by some writers, represented as having substituted the pivoted needle as well as added the Rose of the Winds.[21] He will not, however, recognize the claims made in favour of Flavio Gioja. On the other hand, A. Botto has shown that the Amalfitans introduced the compass between the tenth and the eleventh centuries (“Contributo agli studi storici sull’origine della bussola nautica,” 1899). Consult likewise Vol. IX of “Annales de Géogr. et de Bibliogr.,” 1899, p. 8.
At p. 195 of the December 1904 issue of “Terrestrial Magnetism” is a short article relative to the claim made that the compass was invented by a Veronese named Salomone Ireneo Pacifico (A.D. 776–846) during the first half of the ninth century. It states that Bertelli considers this due to a misinterpretation of an inscription on Pacifico’s tomb, and it alludes to Bertelli’s previous paper on the subject in “Terrestr. Magn.,” Vol. VIII. No. 4, p. 179 (see also the number of “Terrestr. Magn.” for June 1905, p. 108, and the “Geographical Journal” for March 1905, pp. 334–335).
The earliest recorded use of the compass in a Spanish vessel, according to Capmany (“Memorias Historicas,” 1792), is to be found in the Chronicle of Don Pedro Niño, Conde de Buelna, as follows: “It is reported that Conde’s galleys left the island of La Alharina along the coast of Bombay ... and the pilots compared their needles which had been rubbed with the magnet stone....”
In Dr. Plumptre’s notes on Dante, reference is made to the fact that the European knowledge of the magnetic needle came from Arabia, and, like Humboldt, he quotes in support thereof an allusion from the Spanish “Leyes de las Partidas” belonging to the first half of the thirteenth century. The passage in the last named is spoken of by M. Fern de Navarrete in his “Discurso historico,” etc., 1802 (II. tit. ix. ley 28) and reads thus: “The needle which guides the seaman in the dark night and shows him, both in good and in bad weather, how to direct his course is the mediatrix (medianera) between the loadstone (la piedra) and the north star....” Humboldt adds: “See the passage in ‘Las siete Partidas del sabio Rey Don Alonso el IX’ [according to the usually adopted chronological order, Alfonso the tenth], Madrid, 1829, Vol. I. p. 473.”[22]