Page:On the Magnet - Gilbert (1900 translation of 1600 work).djvu/113

 way from the stone, the particles (as if loosed again) are separated and move apart singly. In this way also the foundations of the world are connected and joined and cemented together magnetically. So let Ptolemy of Alexandria, and his followers, and those philosophers of ours, be the less terrified if the earth do move round in a circle, nor threaten its dissolution.

Iron filings, after being heated for a long time, are attracted by a loadstone, yet not so strongly or from so great a distance as when not heated. A loadstone loses some of its virtue by too great a heat; for its humour is set free, whence its peculiar nature is marred. Likewise also, if iron filings are well burnt in a reverberatory furnace and converted into saffron of Mars, they are not attracted by a loadstone; but if they are heated, but not thoroughly burnt, they do stick to a magnet, but less strongly than the filings themselves not acted upon by fire. For the saffron has become totally deformate, but the heated metal acquires a defect from the fire, and the forces in the enfeebled body are less excited by a loadstone; and, the nature of the iron being now ruined, it is not attracted by a loadstone.

ITHIN the magnetick orbe a piece of iron moves towards the more powerful points of the stone, if it be not hindered by force or by the material of a body placed between them; either it falls down from above, or tends sideways or obliquely, or flies up above. But if the iron cannot reach the stone on account of some obstacle, it cleaves to it and remains there, but with a less firm and constant connection, since at greater intervals or distances the alliance is less amicable. Fracastorio, in the eighth chapter of his De Sympathia, says that a piece of iron is suspended in the air, so that it can be moved neither up nor down, if a loadstone be placed above which is able to draw the iron up just as much as the iron itself inclines downwards with equal force; for thus the iron would be supported in the air: which thing is absurd; because the force of a magnet is