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SOME VESSELS, ANCIENT AND MODERN.

The Chinese have often been credited, and it would appear with good reason, with the invention of the magnetic compass. Klaproth, writing to Humboldt, in 1834, gives the result of his investigations on this interesting subject. The first distinct notice in Europe of the properties of the polarized needle appears in a satirical poem of Guyot de Provins, about the year 1190, and the next writer who refers to the same phenomenon as one of use to seamen is Cardinal de Vitoy, who visited Palestine in the fourth crusade, and a second time subsequently at the beginning of the thirteenth century. Subsequently Brunette Latini, author of a work in French called "Le Trésor," written about 1260, observes likewise that it was calculated to be highly useful at sea, but at the same time notices the ignorant prejudices by which navigators were deterred from its adoption; "for," says he, "no master-mariner dares to use it, lest he should fall under the supposition of being a magician; nor would even the sailors venture themselves out to sea under his command if he took with him an instrument which carries so great an appearance of being constructed under the influence of some infernal spirit." A more recent writer, the Jesuit, Riccioli, states that, in the reign of St. Louis, "the French mariners commonly used the magnetic needle, which they kept swimming in a little vessel of water, and prevented from sinking by two tubes." From the above authorities and one or two others, M. Klaproth, with sufficient reason, infers that the use of the magnetic needle was known in Europe at the beginning of the thirteenth century; some of those

writers state that it was invented in Europe, but they rather afford a presumption that the knowledge of it was obtained during the crusades.

That the mariners' compass was in use likewise among the Arabs about the year 1242, is proved by a citation from Baylak, an Arabian writer, who mentions it as a contrivance generally known to navigators in the Sea of Syria. M. Klaproth then proceeds to show that the Chinese compass was, about the year 1117, made exactly in the same manner as that seen by Baylak among the pilots of Syria. "It follows from all these facts," observes Klaproth, "that this species of compass was used in China at least eighty years previous to the composition of Guyot de Provins' satire, that the Arabs possessed it nearly at the same time, and that, consequently, the invention was communicated, either directly or indirectly, to the Arabs by the Chinese, and that the Arabs transmitted it to the Franks during the early crusades." Gioia, of Amalfi, who is commonly supposed to have discovered the use of the needle at the commencement of the thirteenth century, probably obtained it from some Eastern traders.

The attractive power of the loadstone has been known to the Chinese from remote antiquity, but its property of communicating polarity to iron is for the first time explicitly noticed in a Chinese dictionary finished in A.D. 121; under the head of loadstone appears this definition: "A stone with which a direction can be given to the needle." Père Gaubil, in his history of the Tang dynasty, states that he found, in a work written one hundred years later than the above, the use of the compass distinctly recorded. In a dictionary published in the reign of Kang-ly, who flourished in the latter part of the seventeenth and first quarter of the eighteenth century, it is stated that under the Tsin dynasty, previous to A.D. 419, ships were steered to the south by the magnet.

But it was not with the compass alone that the Chinese were so early acquainted; M. Klaproth has

shown that they had observed long before us the variation of the needle from the true pole. The author of a Chinese work on medicine and natural history, quoted by Sir John Davis, has the following passage: "When a steel point is rubbed with the magnet it acquires the property of pointing to the south, yet it declines always to the east, and is not due south. If the needle be passed through a wick, made of a rush, and placed on water, it will also indicate the south, but with a continual inclination towards the point ping or south." Klaproth then shows that such is actually the case at Pekin, according to the observations of Père Amiot, who states as the results of his own experiments during a number of years, that "the variation of the magnetic needle continues the same in this capital, viz.: between 2 and 2°30′ to the west." Now, as the Chinese suppose that the point of magnetic attraction is to the south, they of course reverse the foregoing terms, and say that the needle points south, with a variation cast. This very difference is a mark of the originality of the Chinese compass, which is further proved (as Mr. Barron observes) by their having engrafted upon, and combined with it, their most ancient astrological notions. This instrument, instead of consisting of a moveable card attached to the needle, is simply a needle of less than an inch in length, slung in a glazed hole in the centre of a solid wooden dish, finely varnished. The broad circumference of this dish is marked off into concentric circles, on which are inscribed the eight mystical figures of Fohy, the twelve horary characters, the ten others which, combined with these, mark the years of the cycle, the twenty-four divisions of their solar year, and the twenty-eight lunar mansions.*

The sailing canoes, or flying proas, of the Ladrone Islands are an admirable, and without doubt, most ancient type of vessel. Dampier, in his voyages, gives a detailed description of them. of them. He says:

*See Sir John Davis' work, "The Chinese; a General Description of China and its Inhabitants," p. 277-79.

"Their proa, or sailing canoe, is sharp at both ends, the bottom is of one piece, of good substance, neatly hollowed, and is about 28 feet long, the under or keel part is made round, but inclining to a wedge, the upper part is almost flat, having a very gentle hollow, and is about a foot broad; from hence, both sides of the boat are carried up to about 5 feet high with narrow planks, and each end of the boat turns up round very prettily. But what is very singular, one side of the boat is made perpendicular like a wall, while the other side is rounding as other vessels are with a pretty full belly. The dried husks of the cocoa-nut serve for oakum. At the middle of the vessel the breadth aloft is four or five feet or more, according to the length of the boat. The mast stands exactly in the middle, with a long yard that peeps up and down like a ship's mizen-yard; one end of it reaches down to the end of the boat, where it is placed in a notch made purposely to keep it fast, the other end hangs over the stern. To this yard the sail is fastened, and at the foot of the sail is another small yard to keep the sail out square, or to roll the sail upon when it blows hard, for it serves instead of a reef to take up the sail to what degree they please. Along the belly-side of the boat, parallel with it, at about seven feet distance lies another boat or canoe, very small, being a log of very light wood, almost as long as the great boat, but not above a foot and a half wide at the upper part, and sharp like a wedge at each end. The little boat is fixed firm to the other by two bamboos placed across the great boat, one near each end, and its use is to keep the great boat upright from oversetting. They keep the flat side of the great boat against the wind, and the belly-side, consequently, with its little boat is upon the lee.* The vessel has a

* The Ladrone flying proa, described in Commodore Anson's voyage, sailed with the belly or rounded side and its small canoe to windward, by which it appears that these proas were occasionally managed either way, probably according to the strength of the wind, the little parallel boat or canoe preserving the large one upright by its weight when to windward, and its buoyancy when to leeward. Then outriggers are also used to the present day by the Cingalese, and all who have used them, can certify how admirably they sail.

head at each end so as to be able to sail with either foremost; they need not tack as our vessels do, but when they ply to windward, and are minded to make a board the other way, they only alter the setting of the sail by shifting the end of the yard, and they take the broad paddle, with which they steer instead of a rudder, to the other end of the vessel. I have been particular in describing these their sailing canoes, because I believe they sail the best of any boats in the world. I tried the swiftness of one of them with our log; we had twelve knots on our reel, and she ran it all out before the half-minute glass was half out. I believe she would run twentyfour miles in an hour. It was very pleasant to see the little boat running so swift by the other's side. I was told that one of these proas, being sent express from Guahan to Manila (a distance of above 480 leagues), performed the voyage in four days."

Le Maire and Shouten, in the memorable voyage in which they made the discovery of the passage between Tierra del Fuego and Staten Island, overtook, in the Pacific Ocean, far distant from land, on the 8th May, 1616, an outrigger canoe of similar principle, but differing somewhat in construction to the preceding. Jacob Le Maire thus describes this vessel in the Navigations Australis des Couvertes :

"The vessel was formed of two large and handsome canoes, which were placed parallel and a convenient distance from each other; in the middle of each canoe a very broad thick plank of a red-coloured wood and very light was placed lengthways upon its edge, across the two planks were laid some small beams, and upon the beams a platform of thin planks. The whole was compact and well fastened together. Over one part of the platform was a small shed of matting, under which the women and children remained. There was but one mast and one sail. The mast was fixed in a step towards the forepart of the starboard (right-hand) canoe, the sail was of triangular form, and attached to a yard which rested on the upper end of the mast, which was forked for the purpose. The vessel was steered with oars abaft. The sail was of matting, and towards the upper part of it there was marked a figure representing a cock, which it is probable was intended, like the flags of more civilised and more powerful nations to denote to what island or state the canoe belonged. Their cordage was well made, they were provided with hooks for fishing, the back part of which were of stone and the hook or bearded part of bone, tortoise-shell, or mother-of-pearl. Everything appertaining to the vessel was neat and well-fitted for sea.

The vessel in use among the Peruvians was called

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