Page:Mathematical collections and translations, in two tomes - Salusbury (1661).djvu/399

 Your whole discourse hath been in my judgment very concluding, and this experiment of the Needle hath made me think it little inferiour to a Mathematical Demonstration; and I ingenuously confesse, that in all the Magnetick Philosophy, I never heard or read any thing, that with such strong reasons gave account of its so many admirable accidents, of which, if the causes were with the same perspicuity laid open, I know not what sweeter food our Intellects could desire.

In seeking the reasons of conclusions unknown unto us, it is requisite to have the good fortune to direct the discourse from the very beginning towards the way of truth; in which if any one walk, it will easily happen, that one shall meet with several other Propositions known to be true, either by disputes or experiments, from the certainty of which the truth of ours acquireth strength and evidence; as it did in every respect happen to me in the present Probleme, for being desirous to assure my self, by some other accident, whether the reason of the Proposition, by me found, were true; namely, whether the substance of the Magnet were really much lesse continuate than that of Iron or of Steel, I made the Artists that work in the Gallery of my Lord the Grand Duke, to smooth one side of that piece of Magnet, which formerly was yours, and then to polish and burnish it; upon which to my satisfaction I found what I desired. For I discovered many specks of colour different from the rest, but as splendid and bright, as any of the harder sort of stones; the rest of the Magnet was polite, but to the tact onely, not being in the least splendid; but rather as if it were smeered over with foot; and this was the substance of the Load-stone, and the shining part was the fragments of other stones intermixt therewith, as was sensibly made known by presenting the face thereof to filings of Iron, the which in great number leapt to the Load-stone, but not so much as one grain did stick to the said spots, which were many, some as big as the fourth part of the nail of a mans finger, others somewhat lesser, the least of all very many, and those that were scarce visible almost innumerable. So that I did assure my self, that my conjecture was true, when I first thought that the substance of the Magnet was not close and compact, but porous, or to say better, spongy; but with this difference, that whereas the sponge in its cavities and little cels conteineth Air or Water, the Magnet hath its pores full of hard and heavy stone, as appears by the exquisite lustre which those specks receive. Whereupon, as I have said from the beginning, applying the surface of the Iron to the superficies of the Magnet the minute particles of the Iron, though perhaps more continuate than these of any other body (as its