Page:On the Magnet - Gilbert (1900 translation of 1600 work).djvu/157



Figures illustrating horizontal directions above the body of a loadstone. All the cusps that have been made southern by rubbing on the boreal pole, or some place round the northern pole A, turn toward the pole A, and turn away from the southern pole B, toward which all the crosses look. I call the direction horizontal, because it is arranged along the plane of the horizon; for nautical and horological instruments are so constructed that the iron hangs or is supported in æquilibrium on the point of a sharp pin, which prevents the dipping of the versorium, about which we intend to speak later. And in this way it is of the greatest use to man, indicating and distinguishing all the points of the horizon and the winds. Otherwise on every oblique sphere (whether of stone or the earth) versoria and all magnetick substances would have a dip by their own nature below the horizon; and at the poles the directions would be perpendicular, which appears in our discussion On Declination.

A round stone (or terrella) cut in two at the æquator; and all the cusps have been touched by the pole A. The points at the centre of the earth, and between the two parts of the terrella which has been cut in two through the plane of the æquator,