 |
| Peice of metal shaped as fished used as a Compass in early China |
 |
| South pointing spoon compas used by early Chinese for Feng Shui |
It must have been very difficult for sailors and voyagers to travel through the vast seas without the help of modern gadgets to guide the way. In ancient times, sailors charted their course by the position of stars in the sky. In those days there was no such thing known as the compass. No one knows when or where the first compass was invented.
The earliest report of the use of compass appears in a Chinese book and the date given is the end of the 11th century A.D. The European ships used the compass in 1345. The early compasses consisted of an iron needle attached to a piece of wood or cork that floated in a bowl of water.
A really dependable compass was invented much later in the 19th century. But the compass is no longer used on ships - it has been replaced by a more efficient device called ‘gyrocompass’. This device reads the rotation of t_he earth and points to the true North Pole instead of the Magnetic North Pole
 |
| Modern magnetic Compass |