which they naturally incline (if nothing obstructs) to lie parallel. This property is not confined to itself, but communicative, as daily experience shows us in the nautical needles, which by the touch of this stone partake so much of its nature, that the point so touched, unless otherwise hindered, will always look towards the north pole. Let the learned naturalist plunge himself into the inscrutable abyss of nature to find out reasons for this sympathy; it shall suffice here to show the benefits and advantages navigation, and in it mankind, has reaped by the discovery of this most wonderful secret. The Magnesians, as was said above, were counted the first discoverers of the loadstone's virtue of attracting iron; but this greater virtue of pointing out the north pole was never found till about the year 1300, if we will believe all the best modern inquirers into antiquity, who upon diligent search unanimously agree they cannot find the least ground to believe it was known before, rather than give credit to some few writers, who rather suppose such a thing to have been used by the Phoenicians, than pretend to prove it, having nothing but their own fancies, raised upon weak and groundless surmises, to build upon. The great advocate I find for this opinion in Bochart. Geog. Sac. p. 716. and in Purchas's Pilgrims, p. 26. is Fuller in his Miscellanies, 1. 4. c. 19. yet neither of them mentions any proof or strong argument he brings to corroborate his opinion, and therefore they both with reason reject him. These two authors, and Pancirol. lib. ii. tit. 11. do not forget the verse often urged out of Plautus in Mercat.

Hic secundus ventus nunc est, cape modo versoriam.

Which versoria some will have to be the compass. But there is nothing solid in this argument, it is only catching at straws, when all history and practice of former ages make against it. History, because it could not but have made some mention of a thing so universally useful and necessary; and practice, because it is well known no such voyages were then performed, as are now daily by the help of the compass. It has

sufficiently been proved before, that in all former ages they were but coasters, scarce daring to venture out of sight of land; that if out at night they had no other rule to go by but the stars: and what is still more, it is manifest they scarce ventured at all to sea in the winter months. That this is so, appears by Vegetius, lib. IV. where speaking of the months, he says, the seas are shut from the third of the ides of November to the sixth of the ides of March, and from that time till the ides of May it is dangerous venturing to sea. Thus much may suffice to show the compass was not known to antiquity; let us see when it first appeared in the world.

Its ancient use being rejected by general consent, there have still been some who have endeavoured to rob the discoverer of this honour: among them Goropius, quoted by Morisotus, will have this invention attributed to the Cimbrians, Teutonics or Germans, for this weak reason, because the names of the thirty-two winds about it are Teutonic, and used by almost all Europeans. Others will not allow this to be the product of any part of Europe, and therefore go as far as China for it, alleging that M. Paulus Venetus brought it from thence about the year 1260: but this is asserted without any the least authority, only because Paulus Venetus travelled into China, and when afterwards the Portugueses came thither, they found the use of the needle common among all those eastern nations, which they affirmed they had enjoyed for many ages. Not to dwell upon groundless suppositions, the general consent of the best authors on this subject is, that the magnetical needle or compass was first found out in Europe by one John Gioia, whom others call Flavio Gioia, of the city of Amalfi, on the coast of that part of the kingdom of Naples called Terra di Lavoro. This happened about the year of our Lord 1300, and though the thing be of such stupendous advantage to the world, yet it did not prove so greatly profitable to the first finder, whose bare name is all that remains to posterity, without the least knowledge of his profession, or after what manner he made this wonderful discovery. So wonderful that it seems to contradict the opinion of Solomon, who so

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many ages since said there was nothing new under the sun; whereas this certainly appears, though so long after him, to be altogether new, and never so much as thought of before, which cannot so plainly be made out of any other of those we look upon as modern inventions or improvements. For to instance in a few things, we find the use of fire-ships among the Tyrians in the time of Alexander the Great, as was mentioned before out of Curtius, lib. IV. and therefore not repeated here. Our sea charts, on which latter times have so much valued themselves, are of such ancient date, that we cannot find their original; yet Morisotus, 12. says that Eolus gave Ulysses a sea chart drawn on a ram's skin, that is, a parchment. Again, p. 14. the same author out of Trogus observes, that Democedes the Cratonian, employed by Darius Hystaspes to view the coasts of Greece, sent him charts of them all, with the ports, roads, and strong holds exactly marked down. Then, p. 215. he shows out of Elianus and Aristophanes, that there were maps of the world in Socrates's time. This, he says, was about the eightieth Olympiad, and then quotes Strabo, who from Eratosthenes affirms, Anaximander the Milesian was the first that made geographical tables about the fiftieth Olympiad. Sheathing of ships is a thing in appearance so absolutely new, that scarce any will doubt to assert it altogether a modern invention; yet how vain this notion is, will soon appear in two instances. Leo Baptisti Alberti, in his Book of Architecture, lib. V. cap. 12. has these words: "But Trajan's ship weighed out of the lake of Riccia at this time, while I was compiling this work, where it had lain sunk and neglected for above thirteen hundred years; I observed that the pine and cypress of it had lasted most remarkably. On the outside it was built with double planks, daubed over with Greek pitch, caulked with linen rags, and over all, a sheet of lead fastened on with little copper nails. Raphael Volaterranus in his Geography says, this ship was weighed by the order of cardinal Prospero Colonna." Here we have caulking and sheathing together above sixteen hundred years ago; for I suppose no man can

doubt that the sheet of lead nailed over the outside with copper nails was sheathing, and that in great perfection, the copper nails being used rather than iron, which, when once rusted in the water, with the working of the ship, soon lose their hold and drop out. The other instance we find in Purchas's Pilgrims, vol. I. lib. IV. in captain Saris's voyage to the court of Japan, p. 371. where the captain, giving an account of his voyage, says, that rowing betwixt Firando and Fuccate, about eight or ten leagues on this side Xemina-seque, he found a great town, where there lay in a dock a junck of eight or ten hundred ton burden, sheathed all with iron. This was in the year 1613, about which time the English came first acquainted with Japan; and it is evident, that nation had not learned the way of sheathing of them, or the Portuguese, who were there before, but were themselves ignorant of the art of sheathing.

Now to return to the magnetical needle, or sea-compass; its discoverer, as has been said, appears to be Flavius, or John Gioia of Amalfi, and the time of its discovery about the year 1300. The reason of its tending to or pointing out the north is what many natural philosophers have in vain laboured to find; and all their study has brought them only to be sensible of the imperfection of human knowledge, which when plunged into the inquiry after the secrets of nature, finds no other way to come off but by calling them occult qualities, which is no other than owning our ignorance, and granting they are things altogether unknown to us. Yet these are not all the wonders of this magnetic virtue. The variation of it is another as inscrutable a. secret. This variation is when the needle does not point out the true pole, but inclines more or less either to the east or west; and is not certain, but differs according to places, yet holding always the same in the same place, and is found by observing the sun or stars. The cause of this variation some philosophers ascribe to magnetical mountains, some to the pole itself, some to the heavens, and some to a magnetical power even beyond the heavens; but

these are all blind guesses, and fond ostentations of learning, without any thing in them to convince one's reason. There is nothing of it certain but the variation itself. Nor is this variation alone, there is a variation of the variation, a subject to be handled by none but such as have made it a peculiar study, and which, deserving a peculiar volume, is daily expected from a most able pen. But let us leave these mysteries, and come to the historical part, as the principal scope of this discourse; where we shall find, that though the use of the needle was so long since found out, yet either through its being kept private by some few persons at first as a secret of great value, or through the dulness of sailors, at first not comprehending this wonderful phenomenon; or through fear of venturing too far out of the known shores; or lastly, out of a conceit that there could not be more habitable world to discover whether for these, or any other cause, we do not find any considerable advantage made of this wonderful discovery for above an age after it: nay, what is more, it does not appear how the world received it, who first used it upon the sea, and how it spread abroad into other parts. This is not a little strange in a matter of such consequence, that the histories of nations should not mention when they received so great an advantage, or what benefit they found at first by it. But so it is; and therefore to show the advancement of navigation since the discovery of the magnetical needle, it will be absolutely necessary to begin several years after it, before which nothing appears to be done. This shall be performed with all possible brevity, and by way of annals, containing a summary account of all discoveries from year to year: yet lest the distance and variety of places should too much distract the reader, if all lay intermixed, the European northern discoveries shall be first run through in their order of years; next to them, as next in order of time, shall follow the African, and so the East Indian, or Asiatic, the one being the consequence of the other; and in the last place shall appear the West Indian, or American. The first part of the northern European discoveries is all taken out of Hakluyt, beginning with the nearest after the discovery of