Page:On the Magnet - Gilbert (1900 translation of 1600 work).djvu/161



AVING thus far demonstrated natural and inborn causes and powers acquired by means of the stone, we will now examine the causes of magnetick virtues in smelted iron that has not been excited by a stone. Loadstone and iron furnish and exhibit to us wonderful subtilities. It has been repeatedly shown above that iron not excited by a stone turns north and south; further that it has verticity, that is, special and peculiar polar distinctions, just as a loadstone, or iron which has been rubbed upon a loadstone. This indeed seemed to us at first wonderful and incredible; the metal of iron from the mine is smelted in the furnace; it runs out of the furnace, and hardens into a great mass; this mass is divided in great worksteads, and is drawn into iron bars, from which smiths again construct many instruments and necessary pieces of iron-work. Thus the same mass is variously worked up and transformed into very many similitudes. What is it, then, which