Without the compass, navigators of their age

lites to a wondering world*. then, might not the daring have had some unrecorded means of traversing the ocean? It is even possible that the compass was familiar to them. The attractive virtue of the magnet was certainly known to Plato†, and noticed by Hippocrates even before that time. Plutarch speaks of it under the same name‡; and Alexander Aphrodisæus, in his Quæst. Nat. (lib. 2. c. 23.) cites the opinion of Empedocles, and subjoins the theory of Democritus, that the magnet owes its virtues "ad effluxiones atomarum§." Descartes gives precisely the same explanation of its powers which had been given by Lucretius fifty-four years before Christ, and which still remains all we know upon the subject. Some authors affirm that, by its assistance, the ancients performed long voyages; that the Egyptians, the Phoenicians, and the Carthaginians, were actually acquainted with its polar attraction, but that it was lost in the lapse of time, as were many of their other ancient arts. A passage from Plautus is adduced, in which it has been supposed that the author refers to the mariner's compass itself:"Huc secundus ventus nunc est: cape modo Vorsarium, Stasime; cape Vorsarium; recipe te ad Herum.'

* Aulus Gellius, 1. xiv. c. 1.

Platon. Quæst. ii. p. 1005.

† P. in Timæo.

Gassendi, Opera, ii. p. 108; also, Galen de Nat. Facult. 1. i. c.

14.

In Mercatore, act v. scen. 2; and in Trinummo. See also,

Certain it is, that the arts of astronomy and navigation suffered the fate of many others which we have no reason to believe the ancients were ignorant of: some have been lost, and others but partially preserved amongst a few nations, or obscure tribes. Reason, as well as religion, suggests the principle, that such as were necessary for the designs of the Creator have never been withheld from the creatures destined to fulfil them. Many had fallen into oblivion, because, probably, they were no longer needful; and amongst them the art of distant navigation disappeared, when unnecessary, and all the regions of the earth had been furnished with inhabitants through its means. Pliny regrets, that in his time navigation was not so perfect as in former ages; and Strabo says, that the inhabitants of Cadiz once excelled in that art. The Phoenicians and Carthaginians were long reputed the most expert seamen; but it answered all the common purposes of commerce to coast along the shores, or cross to some of the nearest islands. We cannot, then, be surprised that, for want of practice, they lost the secret or art of distant navigation over an element so variable, and subject to so many accidents. If their voyages of discovery had even been productive of any fruits, the spirit, and perhaps the very records of their naval enterprises, might have been lost in the destruction of Tyre and Carthage: for their conHerwardus Admiranda Ethnicæ Theolog. Mysteria. Ann. 1623, p. 975, and Panciroll. de Rebus deperditis.

querors would have been naturally unwilling to believe the achievements which they were unable to emulate.

66

The stars were probably the chief guide to the ancient mariners, who launched out upon the unexplored deep; and there are grounds to believe that, if not the telescope and quadrant, some contrivances, which supplied their uses, aided their astronomical observations. Iamblicus says, that Pythagoras attempted to render the same assistance to the sense of hearing as he had already afforded to that of sight, by means of the doτpas, and other instruments : “ Οιαν ἡ μεν οψις δια του διαβητου, και δια του κανόνος, η νη Δια δια Διοπτρας*. When we compare this record, and the testimony of Strabo, with the astronomical knowledge which Democritus had acquired, and which seems to depend on the aid of the telescope, it is hardly possible to deny this boasted modern invention to the ingenuity of the ancients. Not being, however, in vulgar use, it was, perhaps, like other sciences, neglected, till by the mischances of time it was buried in oblivion.

Whether, then, the ancients directed their course upon the seas by the magnett, or with the assistance of the stars alone, must remain one of the deep secrets of antiquity; but we may safely rely upon the Scriptures, for a proof that they did navigate them to a vast extent, and in very early ages of the world.

* Edit. Amst. 4to. 1707, p. 97.-De Vitâ Pythag. † See Note VI.

Those whose knowledge of antiquity is drawn only from the sources of profane authors, may treat it as impossible that America could have been peopled from the West; or that the Chinese and Japanese could have passed thither long before the Phoenicians, whom they have been accustomed to regard as the very earliest of navigators*. But, be it remembered, the records of the most remote profane history are comparatively of modern date, when referred to the pages of Holy Writ. The great ́establishments of the Phoenicians are stated, by the most learned chronologists, to have had their origin about the time of the departure of the Israelites out of Egypt: it was long after that when they ventured upon the ocean, and founded Cadiz. But Diodorus of Sicily, having associated them with the Carthaginians in the supposed discovery of America, we must refer the period of such an event to an age subsequent to the aggrandisement of Carthage by Dido; and, since this republic was jealous of the Tuscans, navigation having flourished late in Italy, it is doing much for the credit of the ancient mariners, to fix the epoch of their earliest voyage to the shores of America, one hundred years before the first Punic war. Now that war did not commence until two hundred and sixty-four years before Christ-about five hundred years after the retreat of Dido to Carthage; and, therefore, twelve or thirteen hundred

* See Note VII.

years after the departure of the Israelites from Egypt.

Yet, even at the remote period of the transmigration of the Israelites, the arts necessary to the perfection of architecture were not new. Nearly eight hundred years before that time, in the plains of Sennar, mankind had performed its chef-d'œuvre, by the construction of the tower of Babel. The consequent confusion of tongues, which obliged the artificers to separate before they had finished their undertaking, did not deprive them of the knowledge of arts they had probably long possessed. They doubtless carried them to distant lands; and, amongst others, that of navigation, which the chiefs of tribes had acquired by an examination of the ark of Noah itself, beneath the shade of which they were born*. It is true some tribes preserved the arts longer and better than others; of which fact we have examples in the children of Japheth and of Ham. The same might have happened to the descendants of Shem, who retired towards the east; and the ignorance in which we remain as to their future deeds, is no proof that they were idle.

Thus, during the space of two thousand years, which elapsed between the dispersion of mankind and the first Punic war, the inhabitants of the East, instructed in navigation by the most perfect marine architect whom the world ever saw, and having only to traverse a sea so calm as to be called the Pacific, * See Poole's Synopsis.