Read this article on the history of the early compass. The answer questions below. History of the Navigational Compass The compass is considered one of the four great inventions of Ancient China. In the past, people thought that the compass was developed in the second millennium BC. However, the honor of inventing the compass belongs to the Chinese. The earliest recorded use of lodestone as a direction finder was in a fourth century BC Chinese book, Book of the Devil Valley Master. Dream Pool Essay, written in AD 1086 by Song Dynasty scholar Shen Kua, contained a detailed description of... Show more Read this article on the history of the early compass. The answer questions below. History of the Navigational Compass The compass is considered one of the four great inventions of Ancient China. In the past, people thought that the compass was developed in the second millennium BC. However, the honor of inventing the compass belongs to the Chinese. The earliest recorded use of lodestone as a direction finder was in a fourth century BC Chinese book, Book of the Devil Valley Master. Dream Pool Essay, written in AD 1086 by Song Dynasty scholar Shen Kua, contained a detailed description of how a needle was magnetized by rubbing its tip with lodestone. The magnetic needle was hung with one single strain of silk with a bit of wax attached to the center of the needle. The earliest recorded use of a compass in navigation lies in Zhu Yu’s book of AD 1117. In the book he says, 'The navigator knows the geography; he watches the stars at night, watches the sun at day. When it is dark and cloudy, he watches the compass.' After this time, there is much debate about what happened to the compass. Theories include its travel to the Middle East via the Silk Road. From there it is said to have traveled to Europe, and later from Europe to the Middle East. There is also talk of the independent creation of the compass in Europe and then its transfer thereafter to the Middle East. The latter two theories are supported by evidence of the Arabic word for 'Compass' (al-konbas) possibly being taken from the old Italian word for compass. Other evidence includes the earlier mentioning of the compass in European works rather than in Arabic ones. The first European mention of the directional compass occurs in Alexander Neckam’s On the Natures of Things, probably written in Paris in 1190. As for the Arab world, Yemeni Sultan al-Ashraf appears to have written the earliest confirmed mention of the compass in 1290, though some authors assert an earlier recording, as early as 1242, for Arabic and 1231 for Persian. Prior to the introduction of the compass, direction at sea was primarily determined by the position of celestial bodies. In some places, the use of soundings, line measurements of the depth, supplemented celestial navigation. Difficulties arose where the sea was too deep for soundings and conditions were continually overcast or foggy. Thus the compass was not as useful everywhere. For example, the Arabs could generally rely on clear skies in navigating the Persian Gulf and the Indian Ocean. They also made use of the predictable nature of the monsoons. This may explain in part their relatively late adoption of the compass. Mariners in the relatively shallow Baltic made extensive use of soundings. In the Mediterranean, however, the practice from ancient times had been to curtail sea travel between October and April, due in part to the lack of dependably clear skies during the Mediterranean winter. In addition, much of the sea is too deep for soundings. With improvements in dead reckoning methods and the development of better charts, this changed during the second half of the 13th century. By around 1290 the sailing season could start in late January or February and end in December. The additional few months were of considerable economic importance because that enabled Venetian convoys, for instance, to make two round trips a year to the eastern Mediterranean, instead of one. Around the time Europeans learned of the compass, traffic between the Mediterranean and northern Europe increased, and one factor may be that the compass made crossing the Bay of Biscay safer and easier. Show less
Read this article on the history of the early compass. The answer questions below.
History of the Navigational Compass
The compass is considered one of the four great inventions of Ancient China. In the past, people thought that the compass was developed in the second millennium BC. However, the honor of inventing the compass belongs to the Chinese. The earliest recorded use of lodestone as a direction finder was in a fourth century BC Chinese book, Book of the Devil Valley Master. Dream Pool Essay, written in AD 1086 by Song Dynasty scholar Shen Kua, contained a detailed description of how a needle was magnetized by rubbing its tip with lodestone. The magnetic needle was hung with one single strain of silk with a bit of wax attached to the center of the needle. The earliest recorded use of a compass in navigation lies in Zhu Yu’s book of AD 1117. In the book he says, 'The navigator knows the geography; he watches the stars at night, watches the sun at day. When it is dark and cloudy, he watches the compass.' After this time, there is much debate about what happened to the compass. Theories include its travel to the Middle East via the Silk Road. From there it is said to have traveled to Europe, and later from Europe to the Middle East. There is also talk of the independent creation of the compass in Europe and then its transfer thereafter to the Middle East. The latter two theories are supported by evidence of the Arabic word for 'Compass' (al-konbas) possibly being taken from the old Italian word for compass. Other evidence includes the earlier mentioning of the compass in European works rather than in Arabic ones.
The first European mention of the directional compass occurs in Alexander Neckam’s On the Natures of Things, probably written in Paris in 1190. As for the Arab world, Yemeni Sultan al-Ashraf appears to have written the earliest confirmed mention of the compass in 1290, though some authors assert an earlier recording, as early as 1242, for Arabic and 1231 for Persian. Prior to the introduction of the compass, direction at sea was primarily determined by the position of celestial bodies.
In some places, the use of soundings, line measurements of the depth, supplemented celestial navigation. Difficulties arose where the sea was too deep for soundings and conditions were continually overcast or foggy. Thus the compass was not as useful everywhere. For example, the Arabs could generally rely on clear skies in navigating the Persian Gulf and the Indian Ocean. They also made use of the predictable nature of the monsoons. This may explain in part their relatively late adoption of the compass. Mariners in the relatively shallow Baltic made extensive use of soundings.
In the Mediterranean, however, the practice from ancient times had been to curtail sea travel between October and April, due in part to the lack of dependably clear skies during the Mediterranean winter. In addition, much of the sea is too deep for soundings. With improvements in dead reckoning methods and the development of better charts, this changed during the second half of the 13th century. By around 1290 the sailing season could start in late January or February and end in December. The additional few months were of considerable economic importance because that enabled Venetian convoys, for instance, to make two round trips a year to the eastern Mediterranean, instead of one. Around the time Europeans learned of the compass, traffic between the Mediterranean and northern Europe increased, and one factor may be that the compass made crossing the Bay of Biscay safer and easier.
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