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The ancient Egyptians built boats of rushes.

Putting the Earth to Work

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HEN the earth was thrown off from the sun and commenced rotating about its own axis, there was developed a force generated by the earth’s rotation. For countless centuries this force has been at work, but no one has ever been able to harness it to serve the purposes of man. But now, through the efforts of Foucault, Hopkins, Sperry, and other noted scientists, this force has been put to work. It serves to direct a thousand ships in their courses.

Of course, this is not the only force which has been used to guide ships. Since 1297 A.D. mariners have used magnetic attraction as the force by which to guide their vessels. For centuries seafaring men sailed only in wooden ships, and were therefore satisfied with the magnetic compass. Then came steam and steel. Navigation then instead of being a hit or miss game of chance became the exact art of directing a ship by the shortest possible course in the quickest possible time.

Now that ships cost millions of dollars to build and thousands of dollars per day to operate, time has become the most essential element in navigation. The development of ships from the sailing vessel to the ocean greyhound has been one of the marvels of modern times. But the development of the magnetic compass has not kept pace with the development of the ships which rely upon it. Many of the great trans-Atlantic liners are guided by practically the same type of compass as that which Columbus used on the Santa Maria. The compass on the wooden Santa Maria pointed to magnetic north with a fair degree of accuracy, but the compass on the steel greyhounds must contend with many distractions.

For years magnetic compass designers spent their efforts to produce compensating devices that would annul the effects of all external influences, so that the magnetic compass would be free to indicate only the direction of the earth’s magnetic lines. Very little has been done to improve the compass itself—it still depends upon the attraction of the Magnetic North Pole. The Sperry Gyro-Compass differs in principle from any other compass. It is not magnetic. It derives its directive force, not from magnetic attraction, but from the earth’s rotation.