File:Man upon the sea - or, a history of maritime adventure, exploration, and discovery, from the earliest ages to the present time (1858) (14760463156).jpg

Identifier: manuponseaorhist00good (find matches)
Title: Man upon the sea : or, a history of maritime adventure, exploration, and discovery, from the earliest ages to the present time ...
Year: 1858 (1850s)
Authors: Goodrich, Frank B. (Frank Boott), 1826-1894
Subjects: Discoveries in geography Voyages and travels
Publisher: Philadelphia : J.B. Lippincott & co.
Contributing Library: Boston Public Library
Digitizing Sponsor: Boston Public Library

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s of the Indusand the Euphrates. It is difficult to believe that, aware ofthe use to which the needle might be applied, they did not soapply it. While thus claiming for the Chinese the first knowledge andapplication of the polarity of the needle, we may say, incidentally,that it is now certain that they made numerous other discoveriesof importance long before the Europeans. They knew the at-tractive power of amber in the first century of our era, and aChinese author said, in 324, The magnet attracts iron, andamber attracts mustard-seed. They ascribed the tides to the 110 MAN UPON THE SEA. influence of the moon in the ninth century. Printing was in-vented in the province of Chin about the year 920, and gun-powder would seem to have been made there long before BertholdSchwartz mixed it in 1330. Still, it is not necessary to resortto the argument of analogy to support the claims of the Chi-nese to this admirable invention: the direct evidence, as we haverehearsed it, is amply sufficient.
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FRAGMENT OF AN ANCIENT CHINESE VESSEL. A century ago, Flavio Gioia, a captain or pilot of Amalfi, inthe kingdom of Naples, was recognised throughout Europe asthe true inventor of the compass. He lived in the beginningof the fourteenth century, and biographers have even fixed thedate of the memorable invention at the year 1303. The prin-cipal foundation for this assertion was the following line from a MAN UPON THE SEA. Ill poem by Antonio of Bologna, who lived but a short time afterGioia:— Prima dedit nautis usam magnetis Amalpbis.Amalfi first gave to sailors the use of the magnet. The tradition was subsequently confirmed by the statement madeby authors of repute, that the city of Amalfi, in order to comme-morate an invention of so much importance, assumed a compassfor its coat of arms. This was believed till the year 1810, whenthe coat of arms of Amalfi was found in the library at Naples.It did not answer at all to the description given of it: insteadof the eight wings which were sa

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