Page:On the Magnet - Gilbert (1900 translation of 1600 work).djvu/112

 more firmly to a magnetick body joined to it above with a hanging piece of iron added to it, than when lead or any other non-magnetick body is hung on.

A loadstone, whether armed or unarmed, joined by its proper pole to the pole of another loadstone, armed or unarmed, makes the loadstone raise a greater weight by the opposite end. A piece of iron also applied to the pole of a magnet produces the same result, namely, that the other pole will carry a greater weight of iron; just as a loadstone with a piece of iron superposed on it (as in this figure) holds up a piece of iron below, which it cannot hold, if the upper one be removed. Magneticks in conjunction make one magnetick. Wherefore as the mass increases, the magnetick vigour is also augmented.

An armed loadstone, as well as an unarmed one, runs more readily to a larger piece of iron and combines more firmly with a larger piece than with a lesser one.

AGNETICK fragments cohære within their strength well and harmoniously together. Pieces of iron in the presence of a loadstone (even if they are not touching the loadstone) run together, seek one another anxiously and embrace one another, and when joined are as if they were cemented. Iron filings or the same reduced to powder inserted in paper tubes, placed upon a stone meridionally or merely brought rather close to it, coalesce into one body, and so many parts suddenly are concreted  and combine; and the whole company of corpuscles thus conspiring together affects another piece of iron and attracts it, as if it constituted one integral rod of iron; and above the stone it is directed toward the North and South. But when they are removed a long