by William Gilbert

“ Likewise if those lighter pieces of iron or iron wires be suspended, hanging, as A and B, from a very fine silk thread, not twisted * but braided, distant from the stone the length of a single barleycorn, then the opposing ends, A and B, being situated within the orbe of virtue above the pole, keep a little away from one another for the same reason; except when they are very near the pole of the stone C, the stone then attracting them more strongly toward one end. ”

“ But here is seen also another subtile point, that if those spikes were shorter, not as much as the * breadth of one digit, or even the length of a barleycorn, they are in no way willing to harmonize or to stand straight up at the same time, because naturally in shorter wires the verticity is stronger in the ends which are distant from the terrella and the magnetick discord more vehement than in long ones. ”