Page:On the Magnet - Gilbert (1900 translation of 1600 work).djvu/103



ET the line be called the axis which is drawn in the earth (as in a terrella) through the centre to the poles. They are called by the Greeks from, to turn, and by the Latins they are also called Cardines or Vertices; because the world rotates and is perpetually carried around them. We are about to show, indeed, that the earth and a terrella are turned about them by a magnetick influence. One of them in the earth, which looks towards the Cynosure, is called Boreal and Arctic; the other one, opposite to this, is called Austral and Antarctic. Nor do these also exist on the earth or on a terrella for the sake of the turning merely; but they are also limits of direction and position, both as respects destined districts of the world, and also for correct turnings among themselves.

BSERVATION has already been made that the highest power of alluring exists in the pole, and that it is weaker and more languid in the parts adjacent to the æquator. And as this is apparent in the declination, because that disponent and rotational virtue has an augmentation as one proceeds from the Æquator towards the poles: so also the coition of magneticks grows increasingly fresh by the same steps, and in the same proportion. For in the parts more remote from the poles the loadstone does not draw magneticks straight down towards its own viscera; but they tend obliquely and they allure obliquely. For as the smallest chords in a circle differ from the diameter, so much do the forces of attracting differ between themselves in different parts of the terrella.