THE CHURCH AND COMMERCE, INDUSTRY, SCIENCES, AND ARTS.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXV, Issue 43, 25 February 1898, Page 3

THE CHURCH AND COMMERCE, INDUSTRY, SCIENCES, AND ARTS.

(By the Rev. T. Le Menant des Chesnais, S.M.)

It is not generally known that the Catholic Church has ever been the greatest friend of commerce, industry, arts and sciences. Our separated brethren have the most inaccurate notions on this subject. I have therefore thought that a few short sketches on this interesting topic would prove both attractive and useful to the intelligent readers of the Tablet. In this first letter I will speak of I. KAVIGATION. The science of navigation was known at an early period. Not only the people of God, but the Egyptians, the Greeks, and the Romans were acquainted with it. It flourished among the Phoenicians 700 years before the birth of Christ. The Carthaginians were likewise famous for their maritime exploits ; but it was only after the discovery of the mariner's compass that the science attained its greatest perfection. The mariner's compass was an invention of gradual growth. Pliny relates that a shepherd, of the name or' Magnes, leading his flock to Mount Ida, a mountain in Asia Minor, opposite the Dardanelles, being weary and fatigued, stretched himself upon the green sward to take some rest, and left his crook, armed with an iron point, against a large stone. When he awoke and arose to take his departure, he attempted to take up his crook, but found that the iron had adhered to the stone, and that the nails of his boots had been partially drawn. He communicated the fact to some scientists, and they called the stone after his name, ■• the magnetic stone." Others pretend that the origin of the name magnet is attributable to the fact that magnetic stones were found in abundance at Magnesia, in the province of Lydia, in Asia Minor. It was next observed that, if a steel bar was rubbed against a magnet, it would acquire the same properties of attracting iron or some other metals. Again, it was noticed that if a bar of magnet was well-balanced upon a pivot, or simply suspended by the centre from a thread, it would turn round until one point would be towards the North, and the other towards the South. From its property of turning itsextremitiesNorth and South " the magnet" is called "loadBtone," from the Icelandic '• leiderstein," which signifies a leading Btone. It is affirmed that many centuries before the dawn of Christianity, the Chinese used magnetic carriages, in order to guide themselves through the boundless plains of Tartary, and that Chinese vessels crossed the Indian Ocean by means of a magnetic needle pointing to the South. The Chinese carriages and vessels were provided with a figure made of some light material. This figure was put upon a pivot. The south pole of a magnetic bar was inserted in the stretched out hand of the figure, which, revolving upon its pivot, pointed always to the south. The Arabs learned from the Chinese the use of the magnetic needle, which they called " Toron Aphron," that is, " South and North," from its property of turning North and South. Be this a3 it may, it was a French monk who, in the twelfth century, invented the first mariner's compass, which he called " Marinette," a name more appropriate than the Italian " bussolo," which signifies a box, or the English " compass," from the Latin " compassus," which means a circular thing. Guyot de Provence was a learned monk of the famous abbey of Cluny. His works are full of wit and keen satire. The " marinette " or "compass" of Guyot de Provence consisted of a magnetic needle? put upon a piece of cork, and floating on the surface of a vessel full

of water. Flavio Gioia, of Pisitano, near Amain, improved the discovery of Guyot de Provence. Instead of the piece of cork of his predecessor, he suspended the needle on a pivot, and enclosed it in a box. Flavio Gioia lived in the thirteenth century. He was, of course, a Catholic, and, to acknowledge that a Frenchman had led to its discovery, he marked the North with a lily — the then national emblem of France. This custom has been preserved until the present day. The variation of the needle of the compass was noticed by Christopher Columbus, when he was sailing across the Atlantic Ocean. Thus it is to three Catholics that we are indebted for the discovery of the marine compass, its improvements, and its variations. In connection with this subject, it may interest my readers to know that the greatest authority of all time on navigation was the celebrated Dominican, Father Guglielmotti — the /rate marinaro — who died in Italy some three years ago, and to whose memory a hostile Government erected a memorial tablet at Casanate in 181)5. In the next of my brief articles, I shall have something of special interest for the readers of the Tablet. For the present, fearing the editorial scissors, I must perforce be brief.