=B.C. 1068.=--In the obscure age of Codrus, the seventeenth and last king of Athens, at about the period of the “Return of the Heraclidae” (descendants of Heracles--Hercules) to the Peloponnesus, the Chinese had magnetic carriages, upon which the movable arm of the figure of a man continually pointed to the south, and which it is said served as a guide by which to find the way across the boundless grass plains of Tartary. Humboldt states, besides, that, even in the third century of our era, Chinese vessels navigated the Indian Ocean under the direction of magnetic needles pointing to the south, and that, at pages xxxviii-xlii, Vol. I. of his “Asie Centrale,” he has shown what advantages this means of topographical direction, as well as the early knowledge and application of the magnetic needle, gave the Chinese geographers over the Greeks and Romans, to whom, for instance, even the true direction of the Pyrenees and the Apennines always remained unknown. REFERENCES.--Humboldt, “Cosmos,” London, 1849, Vol. I. p. 173, also his “Examen Critique de l’histoire de la Géographie,” Vol. III. p. 36; “Mœurs de Reg. Athen.,” lib. iii. cap. xi. For Codrus and the Heraclidæ, consult: Chambers’ “Encycl.,” 1889, Vol. III. p. 329 and Vol. V. 1890, p. 657; “Encycl. Britan.,” 9th ed., Edinburgh, Vol. VI. p. 107 and Vol. XI. p. 92; Hœfer, “Nouv. Biog. Gén.,” Vol. XI. p. 29. =B.C. 1033–975.=--Solomon, King of Israel, son of King David and of Bathsheba, who, “in the Jewish scriptures, has the first place assigned to him among the wise men of the East,” is believed by many to have known the use of the compass. The Spanish Jesuit Pineda and Athanasius Kircher assert the same, and state that Solomon’s subjects employed it in their navigations. Others, notably Fuller, “Miscel.,” iv. cap. 19, and Levinus Lemnius, “De Occulta Naturae Miracula,” lib. iii, have even tried to prove that Solomon was the inventor of the compass, and that it was in his time used by the Syrians, Sidonians and Phœnicians, but the contrary has been shown by Henricus Kippingius in his “Antiq. Rom. de exped. Mar.,” lib. iii. cap. 6, as well as by Bochart, the geographer, in his “Géo. Sacr.,” lib. i. cap. 38. REFERENCES.--Venanson, “Boussole,” Naples, 1808, p. 34; Enfield, “History of Philosophy,” London, 1819, Vol. I. p. 40; Cavallo, “Magnetism,” 1787, p. 48; Ronalds’ “Catal.,” 1880, articles “Hirt” and “Michaelis,” pp. 246, 344.