Note 586a — HISTORY OF LYNN. PART III. (continued 4)

Were it, indeed, ascertainable, that it was Nicholas who taught England and Europe the use of the Compass, Lynn would have great reason to be proud of him. But the fact is doubtful, if not more than doubtful, as the same honour has been confidently ascribed to Flavio Gioia, a celebrated mathematician of Amalfi, in Naples, who flourished about 1300, which was somewhat earlier than the other, and who marked the north-point in the Compass by a flower de lis, in compliment to the then Neapolitan royal family, which was a branch of that of France. Still our townsman might have a share, and that perhaps not small, if not in the discovery itself, yet, at least, in its improvement, or the application of it to the purposes of navigation. The Chinese are said to have been acquainted with magnetism and the use of the compass long before all other nations.