Page:On the Magnet - Gilbert (1900 translation of 1600 work).djvu/162

 preserves its verticity, and whence is it derived? So take this first from the above smithy. Let the blacksmith beat out upon his anvil a glowing mass of iron of two or three ounces weight into an iron spike of the length of a span of nine inches. Let the smith be standing with his face to the north, his back to the south, so that the hot iron on being struck has a motion of extension to the north; and let him so complete his work with one or two heatings of the iron (if that be required); let him always, however, whilst he is striking the iron, direct and beat out the same point of it toward the north, and let him lay down that end toward the north. Let him in this way complete two, three, or more pieces of iron, nay, a hundred or four hundred; it is demonstrable that all those which are thus beaten out toward the north, and so placed whilst they are cooling, turn round on their centres; and floating pieces of iron (being transfixed, of course, through suitable corks) make a motion in the water, the determined end being toward the north. In the same way also pieces of iron acquire verticity from their direction whilst they are being beaten out and hammered or drawn out, as iron wires are accustomed to do toward some point of the horizon between east and south or between south and west, or in the opposite direction. Those, however, which are pointed or drawn out rather toward the eastern or western point, conceive hardly any verticity or a very undecided one. That verticity is especially acquired by being beaten out. But a somewhat inferior iron ore, in which no magnetick powers are apparent, if put in a fire (its position being observed to be toward the poles of the world or of the earth) and heated for eight or ten hours, then cooled away from the fire, in the same position towards the poles, acquires a verticity in accordance with the position of its heating and cooling. Let a rod of cast iron be heated red-hot in a strong fire, in which it lies meridionally (that is, along the path of a meridian circle), and let be removed from the fire and cooled, and let it return to its former temperature, remaining in the same position as before; then from this it will turn out that, if the same ends have been turned to the same poles of the earth, it will acquire verticity, and the end which looked toward the North on water with a cork before the heating, if it have been placed during the heating and cooling toward the fourth, now turns round to the south. But if perchance sometimes the rotation have been doubtful and somewhat feeble, let it be placed again in the fire, and when it is taken out at a red heat, let it be perfectly cooled toward the pole from which we desire the verticity, and the verticity will be acquired. Let the same rod be heated in the contrary position, and let it be placed so at a red heat it is cool; for it is from its position in cooling (by the operation of the verticity of the earth) that verticity is put into the iron, and it turns round to parts contrary to its former verticity. So