פּרוים
Parvaim is taken as a gold-producing region. It is regarded by some as the same as Ophir. The word is supposed to be cognate with a Sanskrit word pûrva signifying "prior, anterior, oriental." There is nothing in the root indicating gold. A form similar to Parvaim, and also a proper name, is Sepharvaim, found in 2 Kings, xix. 13, and in Isaiah, xxxvii. 13, and supposed to be the name of a city in Assyria.
[18] Page 4, line 35. Page 4, line 41. Cabot's observation of the variation of the compass is narrated in the Geografia of Livio Sanuto (Vinegia, 1588, lib. i., fol. 2). See also Fournier's Hydrographie, lib. xi., cap. 10.
[19] Page 4, line 36. Page 4, line 42. Gonzalus Oviedus.—The reference is to Gonzalo Fernandez de Oviedo y Valdès. Summario de la Historia general y natural de las Indias occidentales, 1525, p. 48, where the author speaks of the crossing of "la linea del Diametro, donde las Agujas hacen la
diferencia del Nordestear, ò Noroestear, que es el parage de las Islas de los Açores."
[20] Page 5, line 8. Page 5, line 11. Petri cujusdam Peregrini.—This opusculum is the famous letter of Peter Peregrinus written in 1269, of which some twenty manuscript copies exist in various libraries in Oxford, Rome, Paris, etc., and of which the oldest printed edition is that of 1558 (Augsburg). See also Libri, Histoire des Sciences Mathématiques (1838); Bertelli in Boncompagni's Bull. d. Bibliogr. T. I. and T. IV. (1868 and 1871), and Hellmann's Rara Magnetica (1898). A summary of the contents of Peregrinus's book will be found in Park Benjamin's Intellectual Rise in Electricity (1895), pp. 164-185.
[21] Page 5, line 12. Page 5, line 15. Johannes Taisner Hannonius.—Taisnier, or Taysnier, of Hainault, was a plagiarist who took most of the treatise of Peregrinus and publisht it in his Opusculum... de Natura Magnetis (Coloniæ, 1562), of which an English translation by Richard Eden was printed by R. Jugge in 1579.
[22] Page 5, line 18. Page 5, line 23. Collegium Conimbricense.—This is a reference to the commentaries on Aristotle by the Jesuits of Coimbra. The work is Colegio de Coimbra da Companhia de Jesu, Cursus Conimbricensis in Octo libros Physicorum (Coloniæ, sumptibus Lazari Ratzneri, 1599). Other editions: Lugd. 1594; and Colon., 1596. The later edition of 1609, in the British Museum, has the title Commentariorum Collegii Conimbricensis in octo libros physicorum.
[23] Page 5, line 25. Page 5, line 31. Martinus Cortesius.—His Arte de Navegar (Sevilla, 1556) went through various editions in Spanish, Italian, and English. Eden's translation was publisht 1561, and again in 1609.
[24] Page 5, line 26. Page 5, line 33. Bessardus.—Toussaincte de Bessard wrote a treatise, Dialogue de la Longitude (Rouen, 1574), which gives some useful notes of nautical practice, and of the French construction of the compass. Speaking of the needle he says: "Elle ne tire pas au pole du monde: ains regarde, au Pole du Zodiaque, comme il sera discoursu, cy apres" (p. 34). On p. 50 he speaks of "l'aiguille Aymantine." On p. 108 he refers to Mercator's Carte Générale, and denies the existence of the alleged loadstone rock. On p. 15 he gives the most naïve etymologies for the terms used: thus he assigns as the derivation of Sud the Latin sudor, because the south is hot, and as that of Ouest that it comes from Ou and Est. "Come, qui diroit, Ou est-il? à scauoir le Soleil, qui estoit nagueres sur la terre."