Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 59.djvu/360

350 direction of a body towards the poles. To the same cause he attributes the magnetization of iron crosses fixed to steeples, towers, etc.

It must be evident from this brief analysis of De Magnete.

 1. That Gilbert was acquainted with all the facts in magnetism known in his days; 2. That he added profusely to the number; 3. That he coordinated these facts and deduced the laws which govern them; and 4. That he was the first to offer a scientific explanation of the behavior of the compass and the dip needle, as well as of numerous other phenomena, correctly attributed by him to the magnetic state of our globe.

Such were some of the 'rowing pins,' as Chancellor Bacon ironically calls them, with which Gilbert built up one of the greatest monuments ever erected by the genius of one man. Had Gilbert done nothing else than propound and establish on the solid basis of observation and experiment his theory that the earth is a great magnet, his name would ever live in the annals of science, surrounded with a halo that even the unjust strictures of Bacon could not dim; but when we consider his spirited advocacy of research at the end of the sixteenth century, and the cardinal advances he achieved in the interpretation of two great branches of knowledge, we can have no hesitation in considering him with Poggendorff, 'the Galileo of Magnetism,' and with Priestley, 'the Founder of Modern Electricity.'

Were we asked to write an inscription for his statue, we should write the simple words:

Gilbert, the Columbus of the Electrical World.