every properly equipped ship in the
world. The purpose of the bar, which is a vertical rod of soft iron,
placed so that its upper end is level with or slightly above the compass
needle, is to compensate for the effect of the vertical soft iron in the
ship.* (* See the excellent chapter on "Compasses" in Volume 2 of the
British Admiralty's Manual of Seamanship.) Flinders' work upon this
technical subject was important even in the days of wooden ships. In this
era of iron and steel ships it is regarded by every sailor as of the
utmost value.

In Flinders' day the delicacy of the compass, its liability to error, the
nature of the magnetic force to which it responds, and the necessity for
care in its handling, were very little appreciated. "Among the nautical
instruments taken to sea there are not any so ill-constructed, nor of
which so little care is taken afterwards, as the compass," he did not
hesitate to write.* (* Manuscript, "Chapter in the History of Magnetism;"
Flinders' Papers; another copy was sent to the Admiralty.) Compasses were
supplied to the Admiralty by contract, and were not inspected. They were
stowed in storehouses without any regard to the attraction to which the
needles might be exposed. They might be kept in store for a few years;
and they were then sent on board ships without any re-touching, "for no
magnets were kept in the dockyards, and probably no person there ever saw
them used." When a compass was sent aboard a ship of the Navy, it was
delivered into the charge of the boatswain and put into his store or
sail-room. Perhaps it was put on a shelf with his knives and forks and a
few marline-spikes. Flinders urged that spare compasses should be
preserved carefully in officers' cabins. Magnets for re-touching were not
kept in one ship in a hundred. Under these circumstances, he asked, "can
it be a subject of surprise that the most experienced navigators are
those who put the least confidence in the compass, or that ships running
three or four days without an observation should be found in situations
very different from what was expected, and some of them lost? The
currents are easily blamed, and sometimes with reason. Ships coming home
from the Baltic and finding themselves upon the shores of the Dutch
coast, when they were thought to be on the English side, lay it to the
currents; but the same currents, as I am informed, do not prevail when
steering in the opposite direction." The last is a neat str