Compass: A Story of Exploration and Innovation [Paperback]

Alan Gurney (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 8, 2005

"The compass' rocky evolution is charted with an enthusiast's passion....A fascinating adventure."—Bernadette Murphy, Los Angeles Times

Compass chronicles the misadventures of those who attempted to perfect the magnetic compass—so precious to sixteenth-century seamen that, by law, any man found tampering with it had his hand pinned to the mast with a dagger. From the time man first took to the seas until only one thousand years ago, sight and winds were the sailor's only navigational aids. It was not until the development of the compass that maps and charts could be used with any accuracy—even so, it would be hundreds of years and thousands of shipwrecks before the marvelous instrument was perfected. And its history up to modern times is filled with the stories of disasters that befell sailors who misused it. In this page-turning history of man's search for reliable navigation of treacherous sea routes around the globe, Alan Gurney brings to life the instrument Victor Hugo called "the soul of the ship." 20 illustrations.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

British writer, photographer and yacht designer Gurney (The Race to the White Continent) sets his sights on the events leading to the invention Victor Hugo called "the soul of the ship." Centuries ago, a sailor's directional aids were winds and vision. Until the compass was developed in the 12th century, maps and charts could not be used with accuracy, but "the path from lodestone to global positioning systems has been a tortuous one... marked by wrecks and sailors' bones." Gurney begins with the Scilly Islands catastrophe of 1707, when "shoddy compasses" led to the death of 2,000 men in "the worst shipwreck disaster ever suffered by the Royal Navy." Early discoveries that lodestone could magnetize a needle were followed by a parade of devices and experiments. With the circumnavigation of the globe in 1522, "the whole world was magically transformed into an oyster for traders... explorers, and mariners: an oyster ready and waiting to be opened, not with a sword, but by a compass needle." In 1901, the magnetic compass was "unseated from its throne" by the gyrocompass, yet Gurney concludes by noting that despite 20th-century technological upgrades, the magnetic compass remains "a fail-safe measure." An appendix itemizes deviations of the compass needle from the magnetic north; the 20 illustrations include maps, charts, compass cards and woodcuts. Bibliographic notes filling 24 pages indicate Gurney's exhaustive research for this engaging foray into vistas and voyages of the past.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

From Booklist

Gurney's history of the compass uses the same event for its overture as Dava Sobel's Longitude (1995)--the 1707 destruction of a British naval squadron because of a navigational error. Contending that the search for a better compass was as important an outcome of the disaster as Sobel's subject, the invention of the nautical chronometer, Gurney chronicles the significant figures in the instrument's perfection. This book partially overlaps Amir Aczel's The Riddle of the Compass (2001), but Gurney's British emphasis distinguishes his work from Aczel's Mediterranean focus. Noting the scientific footing the Elizabethan William Gilbert gave to the study of magnetism, Gurney picks up steam with investigations by Edmond Halley into the most maddening defect of compasses: their deviations under local magnetic fields from the magnetic north pole. Others found that iron nails in a ship compounded the problem, aggravated further when iron supplanted wood in the construction of hulls. Consequently, sea disasters abound in Gurney's narrative, admonishing each would-be slayer of magnetic deviation. An engaging sequence of stories for the maritime set. Gilbert Taylor
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 320 pages
• Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company (August 8, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0393327132
• ISBN-13: 978-0393327137
• Product Dimensions: 7.7 x 5.3 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #937,242 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #70 in Books > Professional & Technical > Professional Science > Physics > Electromagnetism > Magnetism

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Good book, excellent subject, but still ..., May 4, 2006

By 

Colin Povey "cpovey" (Clearwater, FL, USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Compass: A Story of Exploration and Innovation (Hardcover)

Compass takes us back to the day when compasses were not understood, performed poorly, broke, were inconsistent, and often pointed many, many degrees from North.

Yet it was all early mariners had.

Alan tell the story of the development of the compass, particularly the marine compass, from the days of a magnitized piece of steel floating in a bowl of water to today's current marvel, with multiple magnets used to avoid sorts of errors like semicircular deviation and heeling error.

Unfortunately, it is not equal to Dava Sobel's great book on Finding the Longitude. The information seems scarcer, and the writing is not quite as good. It is amazing to learn that almost 1,000 years had to pass before most if not all the errors of a compass were figured out and coorrected, Still highly recommnended

If you navigate, you should have this book to learn the complexity of the compass in your vehicle.

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars The joys of magnetic anomalies, February 27, 2006

By 

Mark Mills (Glen Rose, TX USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Compass: A Story of Exploration and Innovation (Hardcover)

The compass is a fascinating instrument. So simple, but so critical to any traveler.

Gurney starts by telling us about the compass disasters. Thousands of people have died by assuming the compass was a simple device, always true and easy to read. As any Boy Scout can tell you, the compass is almost always wrong. It is predictably wrong, but one needs to know the correction formula.

Given this framework, Gurney organizes his tale upon two themes. First, how does the compass design facilitate easy readings and correct interpretation. Second, did governmental organizations contribute or impede good compass design. In the best light, bureaucracies have to balance the need for 'accuracy' against 'ease of use'. In the worst light, the story is simply one of greed and aristocratic pride. Gurney makes fun of magnetic charlatans and the bureaucrats they fool, but he could have done then settle for a good laugh.

The book spends a chapter or two introducing the early evolution of navigational compasses, but doesn't really get interesting until Gurney's two themes come into focus. They emerge when the British Admiralty takes on the challenge of determining 'north' from an always shifting terrestrial magnetic field. Gurney does a good job bringing his cast of characters to life. There are funny tales about the Royal Society's first 'Museum of Natural History', which required one visit to 'apply' for a entry pass, a second visit to pick up the pass, and a third day trip to actually go inside. Another tales discusses a quack doctor's solution to impotence and fertility: 2 tons of magnets under a bed, a string quartet behind a curtain and a mattress filled with stallion hair. Astronomer Halley comes off looking like Star Trek's Captain Kirk. Lord Kevin's story is not so attractive.

11 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Wonderful, if you're interested. Decent, if you're not., March 17, 2005

By 

A. Fowler (Saskatchewan, Canada) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Compass: A Story of Exploration and Innovation (Hardcover)

It's an easy read, and at times a bit funny. I learned a lot, but not as much as I could have.

I didn't learn much because the author assumed that I knew more than I did. He mentions terms once and expects that you'll remember them. It's nice to be treated like an intelligent adult, but because I knew next-to-nothing about the subject, I was constantly flipping back to see what words meant. However, if you know a little bit about sailing and navigation, this book is for you. I enjoyed it, even without a background.