peashooter85:Why do compasses point north? The Island of Rupes Nigra.In the 14th Century an unknown
peashooter85:Why do compasses point north? The Island of Rupes Nigra.In the 14th Century an unknown Franciscan Friar wrote the Inventio Fortunate, a lost work written for King Edward III of England. Supposedly the friar had traveled to the lands of the north, and detailed his travels in the Inventio Fortunate. According to the friar, on the north pole of the planet was a large black magnetic island he called “Rupes Nigra”, or “Black Rock”. The island was supposedly 33 miles in diameter, but was so tall that it reached into the heavens. The magnetic nature of the island was so strong that it attracted metals from all over the world, thus the reason why a compass always points north.According to the friar, Rupes Nigra was surrounded by four large landmasses with small channels leading to the island. There friar had many wild and crazy tails about the landmasses, claiming that King Arthur and 4,000 Englishmen had landed on the islands to conquer them, but were massacred by a race of savage pygmies. Entering the channels resulted in almost certain doom, as Rupes Nigra was surrounded by a large whirlpool that sucked in any ships that dared enter them. While the Inventio Fortunate was lost to history, it was rewritten by a man named Jacobus Cnoyen, whose work is also lost. However, the stories of Rupes Nigra was so influential for the times that maps and other literature included Rupes Nigra and its four surrounding landmasses. The map above was created by Gerardus Mercator’s son in 1595. The belief in Rupes Nigra would die in the 17th and 18th centuries when further explorations of the Arctic revealed that the island and four landmasses didn’t exist. -- source link