William Gilbert

“ But it is always to be noted that, though there are various kinds of unlikeness in the stones, and one loadstone may far surpass another in virtue and efficiency; yet all hold to the same limits, and are borne toward the same points. Further it is to be remembered that all who before our time wrote of the poles of the stone, and all the craftsmen and navigators, have been very greatly in error in considering the part of the stone which tended to the north as the north pole of the stone, and that which verged toward the south, the south pole, which we shall hereafter prove to be false. ”

“ Why, however, nature has been so stingy as regards the number of metals, or why there should be as many as are known to man, it is not easy to explain; though the simple-minded and raving Astrologers refer the metals each to its own planet. But there is no agreement of the metals with the planets, nor of the planets with the metals, either in numbers or in properties. For what connexion is there of iron with Mars? ”

“ But what the Chemists (as Geber, and others) call fixed earthy sulphur in iron is nothing else than the homogenic earth-substance concreted by its own humour, amalgamated with a double fluid: a metallick humour is inserted along with a small quantity of the substance of the earth not devoid of humour. Wherefore the common saying that in gold there is pure earth, but in iron mostly impure, is wrong; as though there were indeed such a thing as natural earth, and that the globe itself were (by some unknown process of refining) depurate. ”

“ But if you direct the part or point A to C in the other stone, the one repels or turns away from the other: for so were nature perverted, and the form of the stone perturbed, a form that strictly keeps the laws which it imposed upon bodies: hence, when all is not rightly ordered according to nature, comes the flight of one from the other's perverse position and from the discord, for nature does not allow of an unjust and inequitable peace, or compromise: but wages war and exerts force to make bodies acquiesce well and justly. ”

“ Iron is by all reckoned in the class of metals, and is a metal livid in colour, very hard, glows red-hot before it melts, being most difficult of fusion, is beaten out under the hammer, and is very resonant. ”

“ But when three or four hundred years afterwards, the magnetick movement to North and South was discovered or again recognized by men, many learned men attempted, each according to the bent of his own mind, either by wonder and praise, or by some sort of reasonings, to throw light upon a virtue so notable, and so needful for the use of mankind. ”

“ Thus if one had iron nails in one's boots, one could not tear away one's foot on the one mountain, nor stand still on the other. Albertus Magnus writes that a loadstone had been found in his day which with one part drew to itself iron, and repelled it with its other end; but Albertus observed the facts badly; for every loadstone attracts with one end iron that has been touched with a loadstone, and drives it away with the other; and draws iron that been touched with a loadstone more powerfully than iron that has not been so touched. ”

“ And so, by the help of this magnetick index, it would seem as though that geographical problem of finding the longitude, which for so many centuries has exercised the intellects of the most learned Mathematicians, were going to be in some way satisfied; because if the variation for any maritime place whatever were known, the same place could very readily be found afterward, as often as was required, from the same variation, the latitude of the same place being not unknown. ”

“ Nor have we found this our labour idle or unfruitful; since daily during our experimenting, new and unexpected properties came to light; and our Philosophy hath grown so much from the things diligently observed, that we have attempted to expound the interior parts of the terrene globe, and its native substance, upon magnetick principles; and to reveal to men the earth (our common mother) , and to point it out as if with the finger, by real demonstrations and by experiments manifestly apparent to the senses. ”

“ Chemists say that if a bed of fixed earthy sulphur be combined with fixed earthy quicksilver, and the two together are neither pure white but of a livid whiteness, if the sulphur prevail, iron is formed. For these stern masters of metals who by many inventions twisting them about, pound, calcine, dissolve, sublime, and precipitate, decide that this metal, both on account of the earthy sulphur and of the earthy mercury, is more truly a son of the earth than any other; they do not even think gold or silver, lead, tin, or copper itself so earthy ”

“ For clumsy, and meagre, and pointless is his inquiry into hidden causes. The ingenious Fracastorio, a distinguished philosopher, in seeking the reason for the direction of the loadstone, feigns Hyperborean magnetick mountains attracting magnetical things of iron: this view, which has found acceptance in part by others, is followed by many authors and finds a place not in their writings only, but in geographical tables, marine charts, and maps of the globe: dreaming, as they do, of magnetick poles and huge rocks, different from the poles of the earth. ”

“ The Æthiopian magnets if they be powerful, like those brought from China, because all strong ones show the effect more quickly and more plainly, attract more strongly in the parts nearest the pole, and turn about until pole looks directly at pole. The pole of a stone more persistently attracts and more rapidly seizes the corresponding part (which they term the adverse part) of another stone; for instance, North pulls South; just so it also summons iron with more vehemence, and the iron cleaves to it more firmly whether it have been previously excited by the magnet, or is untouched. ”

“ Nor is there any doubt but that those most learned men, Peter Plancius (not more deeply versed in Geography than in observations magnetical) , and Simon Stevinus, the most distinguished mathematician, will rejoice in no moderate degree, when they first see these magnetical books of yours, and observe their λιμενευρετική, or Haven-finding Art, enlarged and enriched by so great and unexpected an addition; and without doubt they will urge all their own shipmasters (as far as they can) to observe also everywhere the magnetick declination below the horizon no less than the variation. ”

“ Since (if not certain) it is at least probable, that the latitude itself, or rather the effect of the latitude, can be found (even in very dark weather) much more accurately from that declination alone, than can either the longitude or the effect of the longitude from the variation, though the sun itself is shining brightly or all the stars are visible, with the most skilful employment likewise of all the most exact instruments. ”

“ Lucretius Carus, the poet of the Epicurean school, considers that an attraction is brought about in this way: that as from all things there is an efflux of very minute bodies, so from the iron atoms flow into the space emptied by the elements of the loadstone, between the iron and the loadstone, and that as soon as they have begun to stream towards the loadstone, the iron follows, its corpuscles being entangled. ”

“ Thus do numerous sorts of things contain in their various substances notably and abundantly this element of iron and earth. However, there are many stones, and very common ones, found in every soil, also earths, and various and mixed materials, which do not hold rich substances, but yet have their own iron elements, and yield them to skilfully-made fires, yet which are left aside by metallick men because they are less profitable; while other soils give some show of a ferruginous nature, yet (being very barren) are hardly ever smelted down into iron; and being neglected are not generally known. ”

“ But ours is that metals arise and effloresce at the summits of the earth's globe, being distinguished each by its own form, like some of the other substances dug out of it, and all bodies around us. The earth's globe does not consist of ashes or inert dust. Nor is fresh water an element, but a more simple consistency of evaporated fluids of the earth. ”

“ Rightly then in some measure does Aristotle make out the matter of metals to be that exhalation which in continuance thickens in the lodes of certain soils: for the vapours are condensed in places which are less hot than the spot whence they issued, and by help of the nature of the soils and mountains, as in a womb, they are at fitting seasons congealed and changed into metals: but it is not they alone which form ores, but they flow into and enter a more solid material, and so form metals. ”

“ They enter most often into the truer and more homogeneal substance of the globe, and in the process of time a vein of iron results; loadstone is also produced, which is nought else than a noble kind of iron ore: and for this reason, and on account of its substance being singular, alien from all other metals, nature very rarely, if ever, mixes with iron any other metal, while the other metals are very often minutely mixed, and are produced together. ”

“ But if any see not fit to assent to these self-same opinions and paradoxes, let them nevertheless mark the great array of experiments and discoveries (by which notably every philosophy flourisheth) , which have been wrought out and demonstrated by us with many pains and vigils and expenses. In these rejoice, and employ them to better uses, if ye shall be able. I know how arduous it is to give freshness to old things, lustre to the antiquated, light to the dark, grace to the despised, credibility to the doubtful ”

“ Marsilius Ficinus ruminates over the ancient opinions, and in order to show the reason of the direction seeks the cause in the heavenly constellation of the Bear, supposing the virtue of the Bear to prevail in the stone and to be transferred to the iron. Paracelsus asserted that there are stars, endowed with the power of the loadstone, which attract to themselves iron. Levinus Lemnius describes and praises the compass, and infers its antiquity on certain grounds; he does not divulge the hidden miracle which he propounds. ”

“ Do not fear the boldness or the prejudice of any supercilious and base philosophaster, who by either enviously calumniating or stealthily arrogating to himself the investigations of others seeks to snatch a most empty glory. ”

“ Manufactured irons differ very greatly amongst themselves. For one kind is tenacious in its nature, and this is the best; one is of medium quality: another is brittle, and this is the worst. Sometimes the iron, by reason of the excellency of the ore, is wrought into steel, as to-day in Noricum. From the finest iron, too, well wrought and purged from all dross, or by being plunged in water after heating, there issues what the Greeks call στόμωμα ”

“ In England quite lately a huge power of it was discovered in a mine belonging to Adrian Gilbert, gentleman; also in Devonshire and the Forest of Dean; in Ireland, too, Norway, Denmark, Sweden, Lapland, Livonia, Prussia, Poland, Hungary. For although the terrestrial globe, owing to the varied humours and natures of the soil arising from the continual succession of growth and decay, is in the lapse of time efflorescing through all its ambit deeper into its surface, and is girt about with a varied and perishable covering, as it were with a veil ”

“ For by the pointing of the iron touched by a loadstone, the points of South, North, East, and West, and the other quarters of the world are made known to navigators even under an overcast sky and in the darkest night ”

“ Many things in our reasonings and hypotheses will, perchance, at first sight, seem rather hard, when they are foreign to the commonly received opinion; yet I doubt not but that hereafter they will yet obtain authority from the demonstrations themselves. Wherefore in magnetical science, they who have made most progress, trust most in and profit most by the hypotheses; nor will anything readily become certain to any one in a magnetical philosophy in which all or at least most points are not ascertained. ”

“ Some learned men there are who in the course of long voyages have observed the differences of magnetick variation: the most scholarly Thomas Hariot, Robert Hues, Edward Wright, Abraham Kendall, all Englishmen; Others there are who have invented and produced magnetical instruments, and ready methods of observation, indispensable for sailors and to those travelling afar: as William Borough in his little book on the Variation of the Compass or Magneticall Needle, William Barlowe in his Supply, Robert Norman in his Newe Attractive. ”

“ Wherefore those Chemists are fools [76] who think that nature's will is to perfect all metals into gold; she might as well be making ready to change all stones to diamonds, since diamond surpasses all in splendour and hardness, because gold excels in splendour, gravity, and density, being invincible against all deterioration. Iron as dug up is therefore, like iron that has been smelted, a metal, differing a little indeed from the primary homogenic terrestrial body, owing to the metallick humour it has imbibed ”

“ Martin Cortes considers that there is a place of attraction beyond the poles, which he judges to be the moving heavens. One Bessardus, a Frenchman, with no less folly notes the pole of the zodiack. Jacobus Severtius, of Paris, while quoting a few points, fashions new errors as to loadstones of different parts of the earth being different in direction: and also as to there being eastern and western parts of the loadstone. Robert Norman, an Englishman, fixes a point and region respective, not attractive; to which the magnetical iron is collimated, but is not itself attracted. ”

“ A nearly pure ore of iron is now often dug up in Ireland, which the smiths, without the labours of furnaces, hammer out in the smithy into iron implements. In France iron is very commonly smelted out of a liver-coloured stone, in which are glittering scales ”

“ Finally, as to the views which you discuss in regard to the circular motion of the earth and of the terrestrial poles, although to some perhaps they will seem most supposititious, yet I do not see why they should not gain some favour, even among the very men who do not recognize a sphærical motion of the earth; since not even they can easily clear themselves from many difficulties, which necessarily follow from the daily motion of the whole sky. ”

“ Nor of a surety have I any doubt, that all those even who have either imagined or admitted points attractive or points respective in the sky or the earth, and those who have imagined magnetick mountains, or rocks, or poles, will immediately begin to waver as soon as they have perused these books of yours on the Magnet, and willingly will march with your opinion. ”

“ In Germany there are some perforated like honeycombs, lighter than any others, and yet strong. Those are metallick which smelt into the best iron; others are not easily smelted, but are burned up. There are loadstones that are very heavy, as also others very light; some are very powerful in catching up pieces of iron, while others are weaker and of less capacity, others so feeble and barren that they with difficulty attract ever so tiny a piece of iron and cannot repel an opposite magnetick. Others are firm and tough, and do not readily yield to the artificer. Others are friable. ”