Page:On the Magnet - Gilbert (1900 translation of 1600 work).djvu/141

 to both, and that in all magnetick substances there is attraction and repulsion. For both the stone and the magnetick iron arrange themselves by inclination and declination, according to the common position of their nature and the earth. And the force of the earth by the virtue of the whole, by attracting toward the poles, and repelling, arranges all magneticks which are unfixed and loose. For in all cases all magneticks conform themselves to the globe of the earth in the same ways and by the same laws by which another loadstone or any magneticks do to a terrella.

IRECTIVE force, which is also called by us verticity, is a virtue which spreads by an innate vigour from the æquator in both directions toward the poles. That power, inclining in both directions towards the termini, causes the motion of direction, and produces a constant and permanent position in Nature, not only in the earth itself but also in all magneticks. Loadstone is found either in veins of its own or in iron mines, when the homogeneous substance of the earth, either having or assuming a primary form, is changed or concreted into a stony substance, which besides the primary qualities of its nature has various dissimilitudes and differences in different quarries and mines, as if from different matrices, and very many secondary qualities and varieties in its substance. A loadstone which is dug out in this breaking up of the earth's surface and of protuberances upon it, whether formed complete in itself (as sometimes in China) or in a larger vein, is fashioned by the earth and follows the nature of the whole. All the interior parts of the earth mutually conspire together in combination and produce direction toward north and south. But those magnetical bodies which come together in the uppermost parts of the earth are not true united parts of the whole, but appendages and parts joined on, imitating the nature of the whole; wherefore when floating free on water, they dispose themselves just in the same way as they are placed in the terrestrial system of nature. We had a large loadstone of twenty pounds weight, dug up and cut out of its vein, after we had first observed and marked its ends; then after it was dug out, we placed it in a boat on water, so that it could turn freely; then immediately the face which had looked toward the north in the quarry began to