Note 229 — PRIMO VIAGGIO INTORNO AL MONDO (continued 2)

MS. 5,650 says only: “Then he showed the king the sea-chart, and the navigation compass.” Eden says (p. 348) that the first to use the compass was one “Flauius of Malpha, a citie in the kingdom of Naples.... Next vnto Flauius, the chiefe commendation is dew to the Spanyardes and Portugales by whoſe daylye experience, the ſame is brought to further perfection, and the vſe thereof better knowen; althowghe hytherto no man knoweth the cauſe why the iren touched with the lode ſtone, turneth euer towarde the north ſtarre, as playnely appeareth in euery common dyall.” He also says: “As touchynge the needle of the compaſſe, I haue redde in the Portugales nauigations that ſaylynge as farre ſouth as Cap. de Bona Speranza, the poynt of the needle ſtyll reſpected the northe as it dyd on this ſyde the Equinoctiall, ſauynge that it ſumwhat trembeled and declyned a lyttle, whereby the force ſeemed ſumwhat to be diminiſſhed, ſo that they were fayne to helpe it with the lode ſtone.” (See ante, p. 93). The compass was known in a rough form to the Chinese at early as 2634 B.C., and first applied to navigation in the third or fourth century A.D., or perhaps earlier. It was probably introduced into Europe through the Arabs who learned of it from the Chinese. It is first referred to in European literature by Alexander Neckam in the twelfth century in De Utensilibus. The variations from the true north were observed as early as 1269.