Nothing is more obscure than the history of this instrument. The Chinese have certainly known, from a remote antiquity, that a magnetized needle, permitted to move freely, would turn north and south; but they seem to have profited as little by it as by so many other useful things that, long afterward, in the hands of the more energetic men of the West, contributed so largely to the progress of civilization. They were accustomed to poise a sliver of magnetized steel upon a bit of cork and set it afloat in a bowl of water. One end was marked, but this, with characteristic Chinese perversity, was the one pointing toward the south, not toward the north, as with us. This rude and simple arrangement is still in use among the Koreans—or was until recently. With such a contrivance and little, it any, knowledge of the variation of the needle, the Chinese of a thousand years ago made longer voyages than they have done in more modern times, trading not only with India, but sailing regularly as early at least as the ninth century to the Red Sea and the Persian Gulf. There is no direct evidence, but it seems incontestable, that it was from these eastern mariners that the Arabs received the compass, and gradually brought it into use in their home waters, where it became well known to the crusaders and other sea-going travelers of the middle ages. Little reliance could be placed upon it, however, until the sixteenth century, when the need for something trustworthy for long voyages made men turn their attention to the study and betterment of it. Toward the end of the fourteenth century, as I have said, Europe was beginning to recover from the terrible visitations of the plague, and to wake from its lethargy and to look abroad; and various influences were at work to promote exploration by sea and land—and what a grand field for study there was!