Its main part was a wooden turtle which had lodestone in it which was fixed with wax and had a needle sticking out. Wooden turtle balanced on a bamboo needle, which allowed it to rotate freely and the needle pointed north. In the 12th century compass appeared in Europe. Both types of compass appeared: a floating compass for astronomical purposes and a dry compass for seafaring. It improved sailing which, until then, relied on orientation by the sun or by stars and was limited to sea travel between October and April.
Now ships could sail throughout the whole year. Islamic world imported compass during the 13th century and used it for the same purposes as the rest of the world: astronomy and seafaring. This type of compass has been scientifically tested and found to work tolerably well.
By the time of the Tang dynasty and the beginning of the Northern Song Dynasty , Chinese scholars had devised a way to magnetize iron needles, by rubbing them with magnetite, and then suspending them in water. They also observed that needles cooled from red heat and held in the north-south orientation the earth's axis would become magnetic.
These more refined needle compasses could then be floated in water wet compass , placed upon a pointed shaft dry compass or suspended from a silk thread, etc. Depiction of Marco Polo and his travels. Trade Between East and West was Flourishing During This Time It does seem more likely that Europeans and Middle Easterners learned how to use magnetized iron ore lodestones to make navigational compasses from the Chinese.
It was also the time when Medieval Crusaders were making regular pilgrimages to the Holy Lands. In fact, over land travel between China, the Middle East and Europe was booming. But the compass helped make the journey faster by ocean travel. The Compass Enables Explorers to Conquer the Seas With a compass in hand, European mariners were better equipped to sail away from the view of land and across the vast ocean.
The compass is one of the under-appreciated contributing factors to the Age of Discovery, a time of worldwide exploration on the part of Europeans that occurred roughly between the 15th and 18th centuries.
It was during this time that navigators and merchants charted sea routes to the Far East, to China, Japan and the Indonesian Islands and establish trade of silk, tea and spices.
It was also the time when Spanish conquistadors were encountering the Aztec and Inca civilizations of Central and South America and when explorers were learning of the wondrous natural resources of North America. If clouds or fog masked the sun or the stars, you could still travel because the compass would point you in the right direction.
As long as the person using the compass knows what type of material the compass is made from, they can travel in whatever direction is best for them knowing that their compass will point them in the right direction — north or south, east or west. These compasses were made by floating a magnetized needle in water.
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