Page:On the Magnet - Gilbert (1900 translation of 1600 work).djvu/114

 always the stronger the nearer it is. So that when a piece of iron is raised a very little from the earth by the force of the magnet, it needs must be drawn steadily on towards the magnet (if nothing else come in the way) and cleave to it. Baptista Porta suspends a piece of iron in the air[178] (a magnet being fixed above), and, by no very subtile process, the iron is detained by a slender thread from its lower part, so that it cannot rise up to the stone. The iron is raised upright by the magnet, although the magnet does not touch the iron, but because it is in its vicinity; but when the whole iron on account of its greater nearness is moved by that which erected it, immediately it hurries with a swift motion to the magnet and cleaves to it. For by approaching the iron is more and more excited, and the coition grows stronger.

NE loadstone far surpasses another in power, since one draws iron of almost its own weight, another can hardly stir some shreds. Whatever things, whether animals or plants, are endowed with life need some sort of nourishment, by which their strength not only persists but grows firmer and more vigorous. But iron is not, as it seemed to Cardan and to Alexander Aphrodiseus, attracted by the loadstone in order that it may feed on shreds of it, nor does the loadstone take up vigour from iron filings as if by a repast on victuals. Since Porta had doubts on this and resolved to test it, he took a loadstone of ascertained weight, and buried it in iron filings of not unknown weight; and when he had left it there for many months, he found the stone of greater weight, the filings of less. But the difference was so slender that he was even then doubtful as to the truth. What was done by him does not convict the stone of voracity, nor does it show any nutrition; for minute portions of the filings are easily scattered in handling. So also a very fine dust is insensibly born on a loadstone in some very slight quantity, by which something might have been added to the weight of the loadstone but which is only a surface accretion and might even be wiped off with no great difficulty. Some think that a weak and sluggish stone can bring itself back into better condition, and that a very powerful one also might present it with the highest powers. Do they acquire strength like animals when