Page:On the Magnet - Gilbert (1900 translation of 1600 work).djvu/124

 A versorium is moved as far off by a loadstone when an obstacle is put in the way, as through air and an open medium.

Rods rubbed upon the pole of a stone strive after the same pole and follow it. Therefore Baptista Porta errs when he says, chapter 40, "If you put that part to it from which it received its force, it will not endure it, but drives it from it, and draws to it the contrary and opposite part."

The principles of turning round and inclining are the same in the case of loadstone to loadstone, of loadstone to iron, of iron also to iron.

When magnetick substances which have been separated by force and dissected into parts flow together into a true union and are suitably connected, the body becomes one, and one united virtue, nor have they diverse ends.

The separate parts assume two opposite poles, if the division has not been made along a parallel: if the division has been made along a parallel, they are able to retain one pole in the same site as before.

Pieces of iron which have been rubbed and excited by a loadstone are more surely and swiftly seized by a loadstone at fitting ends than such as have not been rubbed.

If a spike is set up on the pole of a loadstone, a spike or style of iron placed on the upper end is strongly cemented to it, and draws away the erect spike from the terrella when motion is made.

If to the lower end of the erect spike the end of another spike is applied, it does not cohære with it, nor do they unite together.

As a rod of iron draws away a piece of iron from a terrella, so is it also with a minute loadstone and a lesser terrella, though weaker in strength.



The piece of iron C comes into conjunction with the terrella A, and the vigour in it is magnetically exalted and excited, both in the adjoining end and in the other also which is turned away through