Hercules,[176] the symbol of Phœnician enterprise, departs on his expedition for opening navigation to the westward, with a cup. This cup he gets from Apollo, and it was destined of course to aid him on his way; here is the cup of water in which the needle was floated.[177] The name of Hercules is given to a _stone_--that stone so called _is_ the magnet. Why should the magnet have been called the stone of Hercules? The explanations offered are,--that it is emblematic of strength in its attraction; or that it was found at Heraclea.[178] Here is the magnet to polarise, floated in the cup. Fuller alone has attributed to the Phœnicians this invention,[179] and he does so solely on account of the Heraclean stone. “It could have had no other meaning,” says he, “than the compass; possessing it, the Tyrians must have carefully concealed it, consequently there is nothing surprising in its having been lost; “Sol’s golden bowl he entered to pass o’er The hoary _ocean’s_ stream, and reached the shore, The sacred depths of venerable night.”--STESICHORUS. many arts have been lost--amongst others, the purple dye for which Tyre was celebrated.”[180] He supposes it to have been first communicated by Solomon to the Jews. Bochart,[181] in confuting him, uses the argument which I have already disposed of--the impossibility of the Phœnician steersman concealing what he was about, from the crew and the passengers, often Greeks or Romans--the impossibility, that once discovered, it should be lost. Those arts alone he owns, had perished which belonged to luxury, not those which were of universal use; and he concludes, that this invention is to be considered a benefit of God reserved for the old age of the human race, in order that the Gospel might be promulgated throughout the world. He adopts as the explanation of the name Herculean, its being found near the town of Heraclea, noticing but not meeting the objection, that in that case it would have been called Heraclean. Lastly, he asks, why should the name be referred to a Phœnician and not to a Greek Hercules? These are the objections of the most learned of modern antiquaries, and urged by the most devoted partisan of the Phœnicians. So far Greek mythology and poetry; and taken in conjunction with the explanation I have given of the cup, the stone, I think they are conclusive: for there can be but one explanation for vessels endowed with instinct _to find their way_, for an arrow _to steer_ _by_, for a stone called by the name of the Columbus of antiquity, from the association of a _stone_ and a _cup_ with navigation, and of the sun with Hercules. But Hellas does not bound our sight: there are beyond higher springs and more sacred fountains, and to these I pass on. The Greek tongue has preserved, though it may have disfigured, the oracular accents of Palestine.