Compass Needle is Unreliable (Jun, 1935)
Compass Needle is Unreliable
“TRUE as the needle to the pole”
says an old song, meaning that the sailor could depend on the compass pointing out true north. But when Christopher Columbus made his famous first voyage, he found out that the compass does not point in the same direction, in various parts of the world. It then pointed north in Europe, but not in America. And now it points north in America, but not in Europe. Furthermore, there are local variations, due to unknown causes.
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