Show l l T THE FIRST COMPASS I Was Known to sailors rs Before tt the tho Twelfth Cen Century Indispensable Century Indispensable Adjunct to Navigation Some Asian p people ople perhaps the tm Chinese Chinese Chi Chi- nese discovered many centuries ago that a kind of iron ore possess possessed d a very peculiar quality We call this ore magnetic ore in more common language language language lan lan- guage lodestone and and It is very widely distributed especially in the older crystalline rocks It was found that If a bit of of lodestone were placed in water upon a piece of cork or straw braid it would turn till the axis of the stone assumed a north and south position tion A phenomenon of magnetism had been discovered by means of an ore that is peculiarly susceptible to magnetic magnetic magnetic mag mag- influence It Is an open question whether the Chinese utilized the directive power of f the lodestone tone but It Is certain that the first rude compass was not used on European vessels before the twelfth century of our era By that time the true magnetic compass had b been en evolved through the discovery that If Ifan ifan I an Iron or steel needle were stroked I on a lodestone It would receive the at attractive attractive attractive at- at and directive power of this ore With this wonderful appliance I placed at the service of navigation the vessels that had hugged the coasts soon dared to venture ev even n out of sight of land A new ix impetus petus was gradually given to cartography for now the true directions directions' of the coast lines might be charted with some approach to racy It was the hapy fortune of ItalIan Italian Ital Ital- Ian sailors sailor to make the surprisingly excellent excellent ex ex- surveys of the directions and lengths off the of the Black sea and Mediterranean Mediterranean Mediterranean coasts and along the Atlantic to British waters that have come down downto downto downto to us In inthe the so called maps Cyrus C. C Adams In Harpers |