of the mixture and the impurity of the materials, their powder may be inferior in strength to that produced in many other countries." That it is sometimes tolerably efficient was proved by the author of this seeing a seaman killed at his gun on board the Imogene frigate by a shot which first came through the ship's side. It must be observed, however, that the ship was then within pistolshot of the battery, and our subsequent war has proved the inferiority of their powder.

The Chinese, we may remark, have always acknowledged their great imperfection in gunnery. Before the Jesuits. taught them to cast cannon, there is reason to suppose that they used tubes of wrought iron bound together by hoops, some of which were seen by Bell of Antermony. The last emperor of the Ming dynasty, as we have before observed, invited the assistance of some guns and artillerymen from the Portuguese of Macao against the Tartars; and Kang-hy, after the conquest of China, employed Père Verbiest to superintend the casting of some hundreds of guns-a union of military pursuits with clerical which brought some scandal upon the enterprising father at Rome. One circumstance in the Chinese system must tend very much to the imperfection of their gunpowder. This munition of war seems, from the following extract of a Peking Gazette for 1824, to be prepared by the troops themselves as required: "The governor of Hoonân province has presented a report concerning the death of several persons by the explosion of gunpowder, as they were manufacturing the same in camp. While pounding the materials in a stone mortar, in the camp of the left division of the governor's troops, a spark which was struck ignited the whole quantity of powder, and the explosion killed five soldiers, together with six other persons." *

* Royal Asiat. Trans., vol. i. p. 395.

It remains to notice the claims of the Chinese to priority of invention in the case of the magnetic compass; and we may here refer to the sagacious investigations of Klaproth sur l'invention de la Boussole, in a letter addressed to M. de Humboldt. 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 is Cardinal de Vitry, who visited Palestine in the fourth crusade, and a second time subsequently at the beginning of the thirteenth century. He says distinctly, "Adamas in India reperitur;" and moreover adds, "Acus ferrea, postquam adamantem contigerit, ad stellam septentrionalem, quæ velut axis firmamenti aliis vergentibus non movetur, semper convertitur; unde valde necessaria est navigantibus in mari." Subsequently to him, Brunetto 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 prejudice 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

* Date, 1834.

magnetic needle was known in Europe at the beginning of the thirteenth century; but none of those writers state that it was invented in Europe; they rather afford a presumption that the knowledge of it was obtained during the crusades. That the mariner's 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, this 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.

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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 Tâng 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 Kâng-hy (not the imperial work which goes by his name), 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 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 Peking, according to the observations of Père Amiot, who states, as the result 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 east.

This very difference is a mark of the originality of the Chinese compass, which is farther proved (as Mr. Barrow observes) by their having engrafted upon, and combined with it, their most ancient astrological notions. From the numerous specimens in this country, it may be seen that 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, the twenty-eight lunar mansions, &c.

The Chinese, however, appear to have applied the polarity of the magnet to a double purpose, and to have used it in ancient times as a guide on shore as well as at sea. This was effected by a machine called a magnetic car, in which was placed a little figure of a man turning on a point, and having its finger always directed to the same part of the horizon. A representation of the car is inserted in Klaproth's work, as copied from a Chinese encyclopædia. It is stated, in a history of the Tsin dynasty, that the figure placed upon the car represented "a genius in a feather dress," and that, when the emperor went out on state occasions, this car "always led the way, and served to distinguish the four points of the compass." These magnetic cars were also known in Japan about the middle of the seventh century, as is proved from the testimony of Japanese works; but they admit that the invention came from China.

But however ancient their knowledge of the compass, the art of navigation among the Chinese has rather retrograded than advanced in later times. It is clear that they once navigated as far as India, and their most distant voyages at present extend no farther than Java, and the Malay islands to the south. The principal obstacle to improvement consists in the unconquerable prejudice which forbids any alteration in the construction of their clumsy and unsafe junks. The hull of these in shape and appearance is not unlike a Chinese shoe, to which it is sometimes compared by themselves.* The stern is cleft, and as it were open, to admit the huge rudder, and thus shelter it

*The eye painted on the bows has a singularly exact parallel in the eye of Osiris, painted on those curious models of Egyptian vessels contained in Mr. Salt's collection of antiquities, sold in London, and many of which may be seen at the British Museum.