Page:On the Magnet - Gilbert (1900 translation of 1600 work).djvu/159

 as in the general terrestrial globe, and there is no eastern nor western place; nor are there any eastern or western regions, rightly speaking; but they are names used in respect of one another toward the eastern or western part of the sky. Wherefore it does not appear that Ptolemy did rightly in his Quadripartitum, making eastern and western districts and provinces, with which he improperly connects the planets, whom the common crowd of philosophizers and the superstitious soothsayers follow.

RICTION with a loadstone gives to a piece of iron a verticity strong enough; not, however, so stable that the iron may not by being rubbed on the opposite part (not only with a more powerful loadstone, but with the same) be changed and deprived of all its former verticity, and indued with a new and opposite one. Take a piece of iron wire and rub each end of the wire equally with one and the same pole of a loadstone, and let it be passed through a suitable cork and place it on water. Then truly one end of the wire will be directed toward that pole of the earth toward which that end of the stone will not turn. But which end of the iron wire will it be? That certainly which was rubbed last. Rub the other end of this again with the same pole, and immediately that end will turn itself in the opposite direction. Again touch the former end of the iron wire only with the same pole of the loadstone as before; and that end, having gained the command, immediately changes to the contrary side. So you will be able to change the property of the iron frequently, and that end of the wire rules which has been touched the last. Now then merely hold the boreal pole of the stone for some time near the boreal part of the wire which was last touched, so that it does not touch, but so that it is removed from it by one, two, or even three digits, if the stone have been pretty strong; and again it will change its property and will turn round to the contrary side; which will also happen (albeit rather more feebly) even if the loadstone be removed to a distance of four digits. You will be able to do the same thing, moreover, with both the austral and the boreal part of the stone in all these experiments. Verticity may likewise be acquired and changed when thin plates of gold, silver, and glass are interposed between the stone and the end of the iron or iron wire, if the stone were rather strong, even if the inter-