This  mode  of  using  the  needle  was,  it  must  be  confessed,  rude  enough.
The  passage  in  the  treatise  de  UtensUibus  contains  one  particular  which
is  very  obscure,  as  Neckam  informs  us  that  when  the  needle  ceased  moving
it  pointed  towards  the  east  (donee  cuspis  acus  respiciat  orientem);  and  as

1  In  a  treatise  of  Alexander  Keokam  de  UUnsUHma,


all  the  manuscripts  agree  in  this  reading,  and  it  is  glossed  by  est,  this
must  be  the  intention  of  the  writer.  I  know  no  way  of  explaining  this,
unless  it  be  by  the  supposition  that,  as  in  the  twelfth  century  the  East
was  the  grand  object  of  most  voyages  from  this  part  of  the  world,  an
attempt  had  been  made  to  improve  the  magnetic  needle  by  adding  to  it
a  limb  at  right  angles,  which  should  point  to  the  east  when  the  needle
itself  pointed  to  the  north;  and  that  this  was  what  Neckam  calls  the  cti-
spis  acus.  Between  this  time  and  the  date — whatever  it  may  be — of  the
poem,  also  quoted  in  my  note  on  the  passage  of  Neckam,  which  contains
the  first  allusion  to  the  mariner's  compass  in  the  tirteenth  century,  an
attempt  had  been  made  to  facilitate  its  use.^  This  was  done  by  thrusting
the  needle  through  some  substance  which  would  not  sink,  and  placing  it
upon  the  surface  of  water.  G-uiot  de  Provins,  the  author  of  the  poem
alluded  to,  calls  this  substance  a  festu,  a  stick  or  straw  (the  Latin  festuca).
