Note 1682 — Chapter X · NAVIGATION.

See on vanes, flags, &c., Beckmann, History of Inventions, iv. 161. As many of our sailors carry about their persons a child’s caul as an amulet to protect them against the dangers of the ocean, so the mariners of Greece attributed a sort of miraculous power to the skins of the seal and the hyæna, which they bound around the summits of their masts as a safeguard against lightning and thunderbolts. Plut. Sympos, iv. 2. 1.