Note 1 — CHAP. III
Reading edition
: LANE'S Arabian Nights, vol. i. ch. iii, p. 72, p. 242.
2: [Greek: "Esti de idikôs ta diaperônta ploia eis ekeinên tên megalên nêson aneu sidêrou epiouriois xylinois kataskeuasmena"]—PALLADIUS, in Pseudo-Callisthenes, lib. iii. c. vii. But the fable of the loadstone mountain is older than either the Arabian sailors or the Greeks of the lower empire. Aristotle speaks of a magnetic mountain on the coast of India, and Pliny repeats the story, adding that "si sint clavi in calciamentis, vestigia avelli in altero non posse in altero sisti."—Lib. ii. c. 98, lib. xxxvi. c. 25. Ptolemy recounts a similar fable in his geography. Klaproth, in his Lettre sur la Boussole, says that this romantic belief was first communicated to the West from China. "Les anciens auteurs Chinois parlent aussi de montagnes magnétiques de la mer méridionale sur les côtes de Tonquin et de la Cochin Chine; et disent que si les vaisseaux étrangers qui sont garnis de plaques de fer s'en approchent ils y sont arrètés et aucun d'eux ne peut passer par ces endroits."—KLAPROTH, Lett. v. p. 117, quoted by SANTAREM, Essai sur l'Histo. de Cosmogr., vol. i. p. 182.