Note 34 — Book II
Reading edition
Asterisks. As Gilbert remarks in his Author’s Preface, he has set over against “the great multitude” of his discoveries and experiments larger and smaller asterisks according to their importance and their subtility; all of his experiments having been, says he, “investigated and again and again done and repeated under our eyes.” There are, in all, 178 small and 21 large asterisks, some of them being attached to illustrations, of which latter there are as many as 84 throughout the work. See Appendix II herein.