part 2

); but the earliest definite mention as yet known of the use of the mariner's compass in the middle ages occurs in a treatise entitled _De utensilibus_, written by Alexander Neckam in the 12th century. He speaks there of a needle carried on board ship which, being placed on a pivot, and allowed to take its own position of repose, shows mariners their course when the polar star is hidden. In another work, _De naturis rerum_, lib. ii. c. 89, he writes,--"Mariners at sea, when, through cloudy weather in the day which hides the sun, or through the darkness of the night, they lose the knowledge of the quarter of the world to which they are sailing, touch a needle with the magnet, which will turn round till, on its motion ceasing, its point will be directed towards the north" (W. Chappell, _Nature_, No. 346, June 15, 1876). The magnetical needle, and its suspension on a stick or straw in water, are clearly described in _La Bible Guiot_, a poem probably of the 13th century, by Guiot de Provins, wherein we are told that through the magnet (_la manette_ or _l'amanière_), an ugly brown stone to which iron turns of its own accord, mariners possess an art that cannot fail them. A needle touched by it, and floated by a stick on water, turns its point towards the pole-star, and a light being placed near the needle on dark nights, the proper course is known (_Hist. littéraire de la France_, tom. ix. p. 199; Barbazan, _Fabliaux_, tom. ii. p. 328). Cardinal Jacques de Vitry, bishop of Acon in Palestine, in his _History_ (cap. 89), written about the year 1218, speaks of the magnetic needle as "most necessary for such as sail the sea";[1] and another French crusader, his contemporary, Vincent de Beauvais, states that the adamant (lodestone) is found in Arabia, and mentions a method of using a needle magnetized by it which is similar to that described by Kibdjaki. In 1248 Hugo de Bercy notes a change in the construction of compasses, which are now supported on two floats in a glass cup. From quotations given by Antonio Capmany (_Questiones Criticas_) from the _De contemplatione_ of Raimon Lull, of the date 1272, it appears that the latter was well acquainted with the use of the magnet at sea;[2] and before the middle of the 13th century Gauthier d'Espinois alludes to its polarity, as if generally known, in the lines:--

"Tous autresi comme l'aimant decoit [detourne] L'aiguillette par force de vertu, A ma dame tor le mont [monde] retenue Qui sa beauté connoit et aperçoit."

Guido Guinizzelli, a poet of the same period, writes:--"In those parts under the north are the mountains of lodestone, which give the virtue to the air of attracting iron; but because it [the lodestone] is far off, [it] wishes to have the help of a similar stone to make it [the virtue] work, and to direct the needle towards the star."[3] Brunetto Latini also makes reference to the compass in his encyclopaedia _Livres dou trésor_, composed about 1260 (