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 analyzed the Magnet; and so they seem soon to have given it over: Besides, in those Days few Men studied Chymistry with any other Design than that of finding out the Philosopher's Stone, to which the Load-stone could do them no further Service than that of supplying them with another hard Name to cant with (h). For these Reasons therefore, it lay in a good Measure neglected by Men of Letters, till our famous Countryman Dr. Gilbert of Colchester, by a vast Number of Experiments, found that the Earth was but a larger Magnet, and he indeed, was the first Author of all these magnetical Speculations which have been made since that have had the good Fortune to be generally approved. This great Man, whom Galileo and Kepler express a great Veneration for in their Writings, deserves here to be mentioned upon another Account, because He, my Lord Bacon, and Mr. Harriot, all English-men, are the Three Men to whom Monsieur Des Cartes was so very much obliged for the first Hints of the greatest things, which he has given us in his Philosophical and Mathematical Discourses. For nothing does more convincingly put these things out of Doubt, than to trace them up to their first Originals, which can be