by William Gilbert

“ All the cusps that have been made southern by rubbing on the boreal pole, or some place round the northern pole A, turn toward the pole A, and turn away from the southern pole B, toward which all the crosses look. I call the direction horizontal, because it is arranged along the plane of the horizon; for nautical and * horological instruments are so constructed that the iron hangs or is supported in æquilibrium on the point of a sharp pin, which prevents the dipping of the versorium, about which we intend to speak later. ”

“ So also the cusp is attracted by E, F, G, H, and by every * part of a meridian, from the æquator toward the pole, by the faculty disponent; and when the versorium is on the same parts of the meridian, the cusp is directed toward A. For it is not the point A that turns the versorium toward it, but the whole loadstone; as also the whole earth does, in the turning of loadstones to the earth. ”

“ Wherefore it does not appear that Ptolemy did rightly in his Quadripartitum, making eastern and western districts and provinces, with which he improperly connects the planets, whom the common crowd of philosophizers and the superstitious soothsayers follow. ”