BIBLIOGRAPHY OF DE MAGNETE.

I. (The London Folio of 1600.) Fol. *j. title GVILIELMI GIL | berti colcestren | sis, medici londi- | nensis, | DE MAGNETE, MAGNETI- | cisqve corporibvs, et de mag- | no magnete tellure; Physiologia noua, | plurimis & argumentis, & expe- | rimentis demonstrata. | Printer's Mark | Londini | excudebat Petrvs Short anno | MDC. || *j verso Gilbert's coat of arms. || *ij Ad Lectorem || *iij verso Ad gravissimvm doctissimvmqve ... || *vj Verborum quorundam interpretatio. || *vj verso Index capitum. || p. 1. GVILIELMI GILBERTI | DE MAGNETE, LIB. I. || p. 240. FINIS. | Errata. Without any colophon, printer's Mark, or date at end. Folio. 8 ll. of preliminary matter. ABCDEFGHIKLMNOPQRSTV, all ternions, making 120 numbered leaves. One blank leaf at front and one at end. Page 114 at end of Liber II. blank. A folded woodcut plate inserted between p. 200 and p. 201. Woodcut initials, headlines and diagrams. All known copies except one have ink corrections in several pages, particularly pp. 11, 22, 47.

II. (The Stettin Quarto of 1628.) Four preliminary unnumbered leaves, viz. (1) Bastard title GULIELMI GILBERTI | Tractatus | DE MAGNETE || verso blank; (2) Engraved title. TRACTATVS | Siue | PHYSIOLOGIA NOVA | DE MAGNETE, | MAGNETICISQVE CORPO- | RIBVS ET MAGNO MAGNETE | tellure Sex libris comprehensus | ã | Guilielmo Gilberto Colcestrensi, | Medico Londinensi | ... Omnia nunc diligenter recognita & emen- | datius quam ante in lucem edita, aucta & figu- | ris illustrata operâ & studio | Wolfgangi Lochmans I.U.D. | & Mathemati: | Ad calcem libri adjunctus est Index Capi- | tum Rerum et Verborum locupletissimus | EXCVSVS SEDINI | Typis Gotzianis Sumptibus | Ioh: Hallervordij. | Anno MDC.XXVIII || verso blank; (3) Præfatio; (4) Amicorum Acclamationes (verses) || verso blank. Sig. A Ad Lectorem Candidum. Sig. A2 verso Ad Gravissimum Doctissimumq Virum. Sig. B2 Verborum quorundam interpretatio. Verso blank, followed by twelve engraved plates numbered I. to XII. Sig. B3 is numbered as p. 1, and begins GVILIELMI GILBERTI | DE MAGNETE. | LIBER I. Sig. C begins as p. 5; Sig. D as p. 13; and so forth. The collation therefore is: 4 ll. unnumbered, ABCDEFGHIKLMNOPQRSTVXYZAaBbCcDdEeFfGgHhIiKkLlMm, all fours. Pagination ends on p. 232, which has Sig. H₃ in error for Hh₃, being the end of the text. Verso of Hh₃ blank. Index capitum begins fol. [Hh₄] and with Index Verborum continues to verso of Mm₃. Last leaf [Mm₄] contains Errata, and instructions to binder to place plates: verso blank. Quarto. Woodcut initials and diagrams. Without any colophon, printer's Mark, or date at end. In some copies the engraved title differs, having the words Ioh: Hallervordij. replaced by the word Authoris.

III. (The Stettin Quarto of 1633.) Four preliminary unnumbered leaves, viz., (1) title. Tractatus, sive Physiologia Nova | de | magnete, | Magneticisq; corporibus & magno | Magnate tellure, sex libris comprehensus, | a guilielmo gilberto Colce- | strensi, Medico Londinensi. | ... Omnia nunc diligenter recognita, & emendatius quam ante | in lucem edita, aucta & figuris illustrata, opera & studio D. | wolfgangi lochmans, I.U.D. | & Mathematici. | Ad calcem libri adiunctus est Index capitum, Rerum & Verborum | locupletissimus, qui in priore æditione desiderabatur | Sedini, | Typis Gotzianis. | Anno m.dc. xxxii. || verso blank; (2) Præfatio; (3) Amicorum acclamationes (verses) || verso Claudianus de Magnete (verses); (4) ibid. Sig. A Ad Lectorem Candidum. Sig. A2 verso Ad Gravissimum Doctissimumq. Virum. Sig. B2 Verborum quorundam interpretatio; verso blank. Sig. B3 is numbered as p. 1, and begins GVILIELMI GILBERTI | DE MAGNETE. | LIBER I. Sig. C begins as p. 5; Sig. D as p. 13; and so forth. The Collation therefore is: 4 ll. unnumbered, A to Mm, all fours. Pagination ends on p. 232, which bears Sig. H3 in error for Hh3. Verso of Sig. Hh3. Errata. Index capitum begins Hh4, and with Index Verborum extends to verso of Mm3. The last leaf [Mm4] bears the Instructions to binder, with verso blank. There is no colophon, printer's Mark, or date at end. Quarto. Woodcut initials, and diagrams. Twelve etched plates of various sizes inserted.

With the exception of the preliminary matter and the Instructions to binder, the pagination is the same as in the edition of 1628, the pages in the body of the work being reprinted word for word; though with exceptions. For example, p. 18 in Ed. 1633 is one line shorter than in Ed. 1628. The etched plates are entirely different. It has been thought from the pagination being alike that these two editions were really the same with different plates, titles, and preliminary matter. But they are really different. The spacing of the words, letters and lines is different throughout, and there are different misprints. The watermarks of the paper also differ.

IV. (The Berlin "facsimile" Folio of 1892.) This is a photozincograph reproduction of the London folio of 1600. It lacks the ink emendations on pages 11, 22, 47, &c., found in the original, and is wanting also in some of the asterisks in the margins.

V. (The American translation of 1893.) Frontispiece portrait || p. i. title william gilbert | of colchester, | physician of London, | on the | Loadstone and Magnetic Bodies, | and on | the great magnet the earth. | A new Physiology, | demonstrated with many arguments and experiments. | A translation by | P. Fleury Mottelay, | ... | New York: | John Wiley & Sons, | 53 East Tenth Street | 1893. || p. ii bears imprint of Ferris Bros. Printers, 326 Pearl Street, New York. || p. iii. reduced reproduction of title of 1600 edition || verso the Gilbert arms || p. v. Translator's Preface || p. ix. Biographical Memoir || p. xxxi. Contents || p. xxxvii. Address of Edward Wright || p. xlvii. Author's Preface. || p. liii. Explanation of some terms. || pp. 1-358 text of the work. || p. 359 reduced reproduction of title of 1628 edition. || p. 360 ditto of 1633 edition. || p. 361 ditto of Gilbert's De Mundo Nostro of 1651. || pp. 363 to 368 General Index. || Pages xxx, xlvi, lii, and 362 are blanks. There are no signatures. Octavo. Diagrams reduced from woodcuts of the folio of 1600. Some copies bear on title the imprint | London: | Bernard Quaritch, | 15 Piccadilly. ||

NOTES ON THE DE MAGNETE OF DR. WILLIAM GILBERT.

During the work of revising and editing the English translation of De Magnete, many points came up for discussion, requiring critical consideration, and the examination of the writings of contemporary or earlier authorities. Discrepancies between the texts of the three known editions—the London folio of 1600, and the two Stettin quartos of 1628 and 1633 respectively—demanded investigation. Passages relating to astrology, to pharmacy, to alchemy, to geography, and to navigation, required to be referred to persons acquainted with the early literature of those branches. Phrases of non-classical Latin, presenting some obscurity, needed explanation by scholars of mediæval writings. Descriptions of magnetical experiments needed to be interpreted by persons whose knowledge of magnetism enabled them to infer the correct meaning to be assigned to the words in the text. In this wise a large amount of miscellaneous criticism has been brought to bear, and forms the basis for the following notes. To make them available to all students of Gilbert, the references are given to page and line both of the Latin folio of 1600 and of the English edition of 1900. S. P. T.

[1] THE GLOSSARY:

Gilbert's glossary is practically an apology for the introduction into the Latin language of certain new words, such as the nouns terrella, versorium, and verticitas, and the adjectival noun magneticum, which either did not exist in classical Latin or had not the technical meaning which he now assigns to them. His terrella, or μικρόγη, as he explains in detail on p. 13, is a little magnetic model of the earth, but in the glossary he simply defines it as magnes globosus. Neither terrella nor versorium appears in any Latin dictionary. No older writer had used either word, though Peter Peregrinus (De Magnete, Augsburg, 1558) had described experiments with globular loadstones, and pivotted magnetic needles suitable for use in a compass had been known for nearly three centuries. Yet the pivotted needle was not denominated versorium. Blondo (De Ventis, Venice, 1546) does not use the term. Norman (The Newe Attractiue, London, 1581) speaks of the "needle or compasse," and of the "wyre." Barlowe (The Navigators Supply, London, 1597) speaks of the "flie," or the "wier." The term versorium (literally, the turn-about) is Gilbert's own invention. It was at once adopted into the science, and appears in the treatises of Cabeus, Philosophia Magnetica (Ferrara, 1629), and of Kircher, Magnes sive de Arte Magnetica (Coloniæ, 1643), and other writers of the seventeenth century. Curiously enough, its adoption to denote the pivotted magnetic needle led to the growth of an erroneous suggestion that the mariners' compass was known to the ancients because of the occurrence in the writings of Plautus of the term versoriam, or vorsoriam. This appears twice as the accusative case of a feminine noun versoria, or vorsoria, which was used to denote part of the gear of a ship used in tacking-about. Forcellini defines versoria as "funiculus quo extremus veli angulus religatur"; while versoriam capere is equivalent to "reverti," or (metaphorically) "sententiam mutare." The two passages in Plautus are:

The word magneticum is also of Gilbert's own coinage, as a noun; as an adjective it had been certainly used before, at least in its English form, magneticall, which appears on the title-page of William Borough's Discourse of the Variation of the Compasse (London, 1596). Gilbert does not use anywhere the noun magnetismus, magnetism. The first use of that noun occurs in William Barlowe's Magneticall Aduertisements (1616), in the Epistle Dedicatorie, wherein, when speaking of Dr. Gilbert, he says "vnto whom I communicated what I had obserued of my selfe, and what I had built vpon his foundation of the Magnetisme of the earth." Gilbert speaks of the virtus magnetica, or vis magnetica; indeed, he has a rich vocabulary of terms, using, beside virtus and vis, vires, robur, potestas, potentia, efficientia, and vigor for that which we should now call magnetism or the magnetic forces. Nor does he use the verb magnetisare, or its participle, magnetisatus: he speaks of ferrum tactum, or of ferrum excitatum a magnete. In spite of certain obscurities which occur in places in his work, he certainly shows a nice appreciation of words and their use, and a knowledge of style. One finds occasionally direct quotations from, and overt references to, the classic authors, as in the references to Plato and Aristotle on page 1, and in the passage from the Georgics of Vergil on p. 21. But here and there one finds other traces of unmistakable scholarship, as in the reference to goat's wool on p. 35, or in the use, on p. 210, of the word perplacet, which occurs in the letter of Cicero ad Atticum, or in that of commonstrabit, occurring on p. 203, and found only in Cicero, Terence and Plautus; whilst the phrase on p. 3, in which Gilbert rallies the smatterers on having lost both their oil and their pains, has a delightfully classical echo. The term orbis virtutis, defined by Gilbert in the glossary, and illustrated by the cuts on pages 76, 77, and 96, might be effectively translated by sphere of influence, or orbit within which there is sensible attraction. It has been preferred, however, to translate it literally as the orbe of virtue, or orbe of magnetick virtue. This choice has been determined by the desire to adopt such an English phrase as Gilbert would himself have used had he been writing English. T. Hood, writing in 1592 in his book The Vse of both the Globes, in using the word orbe, says that the word globe signifies a solid body, while a sphere is hollow, like two "dishes joyned by the brimme"; "The Latines properly call Orbis an Orbe"; "Moreouer the word Sphaera signifieth that instrument made of brasen hoopes (wee call it commonly a ringed Sphere) wherewith the Astronomers deliuer unto the nouices of that Science the vnderstanding of things which they imagine in the heauen." Further, Dr. Marke Ridley in his Treatise of Magneticall Bodies and Motions (1613), has a chapter (XIIII) "Of the distance and Orbe of the Magnets vertue," throughout which the term Orbe is retained. Sir Thomas Browne also writes of "the orb of their activities."

The word Coitio, used by Gilbert for the mutual force between magnet and iron, has been retained in its English form, coition. Gilbert evidently adopted this term after much thought. The Newtonian conception of action and reaction being necessarily equal had not dawned upon the mediæval philosophers. The term attraction had been used in a limited sense to connote an action in which a force was conceived of as being exerted on one side only. Diogenes of Apollonia, Alexander Aphrodiseus, Democritus, and others, conceived the magnet to draw at the iron without the iron in any way contributing to that action. Saint Basil specially affirms that the magnet is not drawn by iron. On the other hand, Albertus Magnus had conceived the idea that the iron sought the magnet by a one-sided effort in which the magnet took no part. Gilbert had the wit to discern that the action was mutual, and to mark the new conception he adopted the new term, and defined it as it stands in his glossary. It is "a concourse or concordancy of both," and to emphasize his meaning he adds, "not as if there were an ἑλκτικὴ δύναμις but a συνδρομή" not a tractile power, but a running together. The adjective ἑλκτικὴ is obviously related to the verb ἕλκω, I draw: but its meaning puzzled the subsequent editors of the text, for in the two Stettin editions of 1628 and 1633, the phrase appears in the respective forms of ἑλητικὴ δύναμις and ἑλκυστικὴ δύναμις. In Creech's English version of Lucretius (edition of 1722, p. 72a, in the footnote) is the commentary "Galen, disputing against Epicurus, uses the term ἑλκεῖν, which seems likewise too violent." It may be noted that the same verb occurs in the passage from the Io of Plato quoted below. The term συνδρομή applied by Gilbert to explain his term Coitio is used by Diodorus for the mutual onset of two hostile forces.

A picturesque sentence from Sir Thomas Browne's Pseudodoxia Epidemica (London, 1650, p. 51) sets the matter succinctly forth. "If in two skiffs of cork, a Loadstone and Steel be placed within the orb of their activities, the one doth not move the other standing still, but both hoist sayle and steer unto each other; so that if the Loadstone attract, the Steel hath also its attraction; for in this action the Alliency is reciprocall, which jointly felt, they mutually approach and run into each others arms." The page and line references given in these notes are in all cases first to the Latin edition of 1600, and secondly to the English edition of 1900.

[2] Page 1, line 28. Page 1, line 28. Plato in Ione.—The passage in the Io of Plato is in chap. v. Socrates addressing the poet Io tells him that his facility in reciting Homer is not really an art: θεία δὲ δύναμις, ἥ σε κινεῖ ὥσπερ ἐν τῇ λίθῳ, ἥν Εὐριπίδης μὲν Μαγνῆτιν ὠνόμασεν, οἱ δὲ πολλοὶ Ἡράκλειαν. καὶ γὰρ ἄυτη ἡ λίθος οὐ μόνον αὐτοὺς τοὺς δακτυλίους ἄγει τοὺς σιδηροῦς, ἀλλὰ καὶ δύναμιν ἐντίθησι τοῖς δακτυλίοις, ὤστ ἄυ δύνασθαι ταυτὸυ τοῦτο ποιεῖν, ὅπερ ἡ λίθος, ἄλλους ἄγειν δακτυλίους, ὥστ' ἐνίοθ' ὁρμαθὸς μακρὸς πάνυ σιδηρίων καὶ δακτυλίων ἐξ ἀλλήλων ἤρτηται πᾶσι δὲ τούτοις ἐξ ἐκείνης τῆς λίθου ἡ δύναμις ἀνήρτηται. The idea is that as the loadstone in attracting an iron ring will make it into a magnet, which can in turn act magnetically on another ring, and this on yet another, so the inspiration of the Muse is transferred to the poet, who in turn hands on the inspiration through the reciter to the listener. After further expanding the same idea of the transference of influence, Socrates again mentions the magnet (chap. vii.): Ὄισθ' ὄυν ὅτι οὐτός ἐστιν ὁ θεατὴς τῶν δακτυλίων ὁ ἔσχατος, ὥν ἐγὼ ἔλεγον ὑπὸ τῆς Ἡρακλειώτιδος λίθου ἀπ' ἀλλήλων τὴν δύναμιν λαμβάνειν, ὁ δὲ μέσος σὺ ὁ ῥαψωδὸς καὶ ὑποκριτής, ὁ δὲ πρῶτος αὐτὸς ὁ ποιητής; ὁ δὲ θεὸς διὰ πάντων τούτων ἕλκει τὴν ψυχὴν ὅποι ἂν βούληται τῶν ἀνθρώπων, κ.τ.λ. (Edition Didot of 1856, vol. i., p. 391; or Stephanus, p. 533 D).

There is another reference in Plato to the magnet, namely, in the Timæus (p. 240, vol. ii., Edit. citat.). See the Note to p. 61.

The reference by Euripides to the magnet occurs in the lost play of Œneus, in a fragment preserved by Suidas. See Fragmenta Euripidis (Ed. Didot, 1846, p. 757, or Nauck's edition, No. 567).

ὡς Εὐριπίδης ἐν Οἰνεῖ· τὰς βροτῶν γνώμας σκοπῶν, ὥστε Μαγνῆτις λίθος τὴν δόξαν ἕλκει καὶ μεθίστησιν πάλιν.

[3] Page 1, line 28. Page 1, line 29. The brief passage from Aristotle's De Anima referring to Thales is quoted by Gilbert himself at the bottom of p. 11.

[4] Page 2, line 1. Page 1, line 29. The edition of 1628 inserts commas between Theophrastus and Lesbius, and between Julius and Solinus, as though these were four persons instead of two.

[5] Page 2, line 8. Page 2, line 5. si allio magnes illitus fuerit, aut si adamas fuerit. An excellent version of this myth is to be found in Julius Solinus, Polyhistor, De Memorabilibus, chap. lxiv., of which the English version of 1587, by A. Golding, runs thus: "The Diamonde will not suffer the Lodestone to drawe yron unto him: or if y^e Lodestone haue alreadie drawne a peece of yron to it, the Diamond snatcheth and pulleth away as hys bootye whatsoever the Lodestone hath taken hold of." Saint Augustine repeats the diamond myth in his De Civitate Dei, lib. xxi. Baptista Porta says (p. 211 of the English version of 1658): "It is a common Opinion amongst Sea-men, That Onyons and Garlick are at odds with the Loadstone: and Steers-men, and such as tend the Mariners Card are forbid to eat Onyons or Garlick, lest they make the Index of the Poles drunk. But when I tried all these things, found them to be false: for not onely breathing and belching upon the Loadstone after eating of Garlick, did not stop its vertues: but when it was all anoynted over with the juice of Garlick, it did perform its office as well as if it had never been touched with it: and I could observe almost not the least difference, lest I should make void the endeavours of the Ancients. And again, When I enquired of Marines, whether it were so, that they were forbid to eat Onyons and Garlick for that reason; they said, they were old Wives fables, and things ridiculous; and that Sea-men would sooner lose their lives, then abstain from eating Onyons and Garlick."

The fables respecting the antipathy of garlick and of the diamond to the operation of the magnet, although already discredited by Ruellius and by Porta, died hard. In spite of the exposure and denunciations of Gilbert—compare p. 32—these tales were oft repeated during the succeeding century. In the appendix to Sir Hugh Plat's Jewel House of Art and Nature, in the edition of 1653, by D. B. Gent, it is stated there (p. 218): "The Loadstone which ... hath an admirable vertue not onely to draw Iron to it self, but also to make any Iron upon which it is rubbed to draw iron also, it is written notwithstanding, that being rubbed with the juyce of Garlick, it loseth that vertue, and cannot then draw iron, as likewise if a Diamond be layed close unto it."

Pliny wrote of the alleged antipathy between diamond and goat's blood. The passage as quoted from the English version of Pliny's Natural Historie of the World, translated by Philemon Holland (London, 1601, p. 610, chap, iv.), runs: "But I would gladly know whose invention this might be to soake the Diamond in Goats bloud, whose head devised it first, or rather by what chance was it found out and knowne? What conjecture should lead a man to make an experiment of such a singular and admirable secret, especially in a goat, the filthiest beast ... in the whole world? Certes I must ascribe both this invention and all such like to the might and beneficence together of the divine powers: neither are we to argue and reason how and why Nature hath done this or that? Sufficient is it that her will was so, and thus she would have it."

[6] Page 2, line 22. Page 2, line 22. Machometis sacellum. Gilbert credits Matthiolus (the well-known herbalist and commentator on Dioscorides) with producing the fable as to Mahomet's coffin being suspended in the air by a magnet. Sir Richard Burton, in his famous pilgrimage to El Medïnah in 1855, effectually disposed of this myth. The reputed sarcophagus rests simply on bricks on the floor. But it had long been known that aerial suspension, even of the lightest iron object, in the air, without contact above or below, was impossible by any magnetic agency.

In Barlowe's Magneticall Aduertisements (London, 1616, p. 45) is the following: "As for the Turkes Mahomet, hanging in the ayer with his yron chest it is a most grosse untruth, and utterly impossible it is for any thing to hange in the ayer by any magneticall power, but that either it must touch the stone it selfe, or else some intermediate body, that hindreth it from comming to the stone (like as before I haue shewed) or else some stay below to keepe it from ascending, as some small wier that may scantly bee seene or perceived."

[7] Page 2, line 26. Page 2, line 26. Arsinoes templum.—The account in Pliny of the magnetic suspension of the statue of Arsinoe in the temple built by Chinocrates is given as follows in the English version (London, 1601) of Philemon Holland (p. 515): "And here I cannot chuse but acquaint you with the singular invention of that great architect and master deviser, of Alexandria in Ægypt Dinocrates, who began to make the arched roufe of the temple of Arsinoe all of Magnet or this Loadstone, to the end, that within that temple the statue of the said princesse made of yron, might seeme to hang in the aire by nothing. But prevented he was by death before hee could finish his worke, like as king Ptolomæe also, who ordained that temple to be built in the honour of the said Arsinoe his sister."

There are a number of similar myths in Ausonius, Claudian, and Cassiodorus, and in the writings of later ecclesiastical historians, such as Rusinus and Prosper Aquitanus. The very meagre accounts they have left, and the scattered references to the reputed magical powers of the loadstone, suggest that there existed amongst the primitive religions of mankind a magnet-worship, of which these records are traces.

[8] Page 2, line 37. Page 2, line 41. Brasevolus [or Brasavola].—The list of authorities here cited consists mostly of well-known mediæval writers on materia medica or on minerals: the last on the list, Hannibal Rosetius Calaber, has not been identified.

The following are the references in the order named by Gilbert:

Antonio Musa Brasavola. Examen omnium simplicium medicamentorum, Section 447 (Lugdun., 1537).

Joannes Baptista Montanus. Metaphrasis summaria eorum quæ ad medicamentorum doctrinà attinet (Augustæ Rheticæ, 1551).

Amatus Lusitanus. Amati Lusitani in Dioscoridis Anazarbei de materia medica libros quinque (Venet., 1557, p. 507).

Oribasius. Oribasii Sardiani ad Eunapium libri 4 quibus ... facultates simplicium ... continentur (Venet., 1558).

Aetius Amidenus. Aetii Amideni Librorum medicinalium ... libri octo nunc primum in lucem editi (Greek text, Aldine edition, Venet., 1534). A Latin edition appeared in Basel, 1535. See also his tetrabiblos ex veteribus medicinæ (Basil., 1542).

Avicenna (Ibn Sinâ). Canona Medicinæ (Venice, 1486), liber ii., cap. 474.

Serapio Mauritanus (Yuhanná Ibn Sarapion). In hoc volumine continentur ... Ioan. Sarapionis Arabis de Simplicibus Medicinis opus præclarum et ingens ... (edited by Brunfels, Argentorati, 1531, p. 260).

Hali Abbas (’Alí Ibn Al ’Abbās). Liber totius medicinæ necessaria cōtinens ... quem Haly filius Abbas edidit ... et a Stephano ex arabica lingua reductus (Lugd., 1523, p. 176 verso).

Santes de Ardoniis (or Ardoynis). Incipit liber de venenis quem magister santes de ardoynis ... edere cepit venetiis die octauo nouēbris, 1424 (Venet., 1492).

Petrus Apponensis (or Petrus de Abano). The loadstone is referred to in two works by this author.

(1) Conciliator differentiarum philosophorum: et precipue medicorum clarissimi viri Petri de Abano Patauini feliciter incipit (Venet., 1496, p. 72, verso, Quæstio LI.).

(2) Tractatus de Venenis (Roma, 1490, cap. xi.).

Marcellus (called Marcellus Empiricus). De Medicamentis, in the volume Medici antiqui omnes (Venet., 1547, p. 89).

Arnaldus (Arnaldus de Villa Nova). Incipit Tractatus de virtutibus herbarum (Venet., 1499). See also Arnaldi Villanovani Opera omnia (Basil., 1585).

Marbodeus Gallus. Marbodei Galli poetae vetustissimi de lapidibus pretiosis Enchiridion (Friburgi, 1530 [1531], p. 41).

Albertus Magnus. De Mineralibus et rebus metallicis (Venet., 1542, lib. ii., de lapidibus preciosis, p. 192). There is a reference to the loadstone also in a work attributed falsely to Albertus, but now ascribed to Henricus de Saxonia, De virtutibus herbarum, de virtutibus lapidum, etc. (Rouen, 1500, and subsequent editions). An English version, The Secrets of Albertus Magnus of the vertues of hearbs stones and certaine beasts was publisht in London in 1617.

Matthæus Silvaticus. Pandectæ Medicinæ (Lugduni, 1541, cap. 446).

Hermolaus Barbarus. His work, Hermolai Barbari Patritii Veneti et Aqvileiensis patriarchæ Corollarii Libri quinque ... Venet., 1516, is an early herbal. On p. 103 are to be found descriptions of lapis gagatis and lapis magnes. The latter is mostly taken from Pliny, and mentions the alleged theamedes, and the myth of the floating statue.

Camillus Leonardus. Speculum Lapidum (Venet., 1502, fol. xxxviii.). An English translation, The Mirror of Stones, appeared in London in 1750.

Cornelius Agrippa. Henrici Cor. Agrippæ ab Nettesheym ... De Occulta Philosophia Libri Tres (Antv., 1531). The English version Of the Vanitie and uncertaintie of Artes was publisht in London, 1569, and again later.

Fallopius (Gabriellus). G. F. de simplicibus medicamentis purgantibus tractatus (Venet., 1566). See also his Tractatus de compositione medicamentorum (Venet., 1570).

Johannes Langius. Epistolarum medicinalium volumen tripartitum (Paris, 1589, p. 792).

Cardinalis Cusanus (Nicolas Khrypffs, Cardinal de Cusa). Nicolai Cusani de staticis experimentis dialogus (Argentorati, 1550). The English edition, entitled The Idiot in four books, is dated London, 1650.

[9] Page 3, line 1. Page 2, line 42. Marcellus.—"Marcellus Empiricus, médecin de Théodose-le-Grand, dit que l'aimant, appelé antiphyson, attire et repousse le fer." (Klaproth, Sur l'invention de la boussole, 1834, p. 12.) The passage from Marcellus runs: "Magnetes lapis, qui antiphyson dicitur, qui ferrum trahit et abjicit, et magnetes lapis qui sanguinem emittit et ferrum ad se trahit, collo alligati aut circa caput dolori capitis medentur." (Marcellus, de Medicamentis: in the volume Medici antiqui omnes, qui latinis literis morborum genera persecuti sunt. Venet., 1547, p. 89.)

[10] Page 3, line 11. Page 3, line 9. Thomas Erastus.—The work in question is Dispvtationvm de Medicina nova Philippi Paracelsi, Pars Prima: in qua quæ de remediis svperstitiosis & Magicis curationibus ille prodidit, præcipuè examinantur à Thoma Erasto in Schola Heydebergensi, professore. (Basiliæ, 1572. Parts 2 and 3 appeared the same year, and Part 4 in 1573.)

Gilbert had no more love for Paracelsus than for Albertus Magnus or others of the magic-mongers. Indeed the few passages in Paracelsus on the magnet are sorry stuff. They will mostly be found in the seventh volume of his collected works (Opera omnia, Frankfurt, 1603). A sample may be taken from the English work publisht in London, 1650, with the title: Of the Nature of Things, Nine Books; written by Philipp Theophrastus of Hohenheim, called Paracelsvs.

"For any Loadstone that Mercury hath but touched, or which hath been smeered with Mercuriall oyle, or only put into Mercury will never draw Iron more" (p. 23).

"The life of the Loadstone is the spirit of Iron; which may bee extracted, and taken away with spirit of Wine" (p. 32).

[11] Page 3, line 13. Page 3, line 11. Encelius (or Entzelt, Christoph) wrote a work publisht in 1551 at Frankfurt, with the title De re metallica, hoc est, de origine, varietate, et natura corporum metallicorum, lapidum, gemmarum, atque aliarum quæ ex fodinis eruuntur, rerum, ad medicine usum deservientium, libri iii. This is written in a singular medley of Latin and German. Gilbert undoubtedly took from it many of his ideas about the properties of metals. See the note to p. 27 on plumbum album.

[12] Page 3, line 20. Page 3, line 21. Thomas Aquinas.—The reference is to his commentaries upon the Physica of Aristotle. The passage will be found on p. 96 bis of the Giunta edition (Venet., 1539). The essential part is quoted by Gilbert himself on p. 64.

[13] Page 3, line 39. Page 3, line 45. pyxidem.—The word pyxis, which occurs here, and in the next sentence as pyxidem nauticam, is translated compass. Eleven lines lower occurs the term nautica pyxidula. This latter word, literally the "little compass," certainly refers to the portable compass used at sea. Compare several passages in Book IV. where a contrasting use is made of these terms; for example, on pp. 177 and 202. Calcagninus, De re nautica, uses the term pyxidecula for an instrument which he describes as "vitro intecta." On p. 152, line 9, Gilbert uses the non-classical noun compassus, "boreale lilium compassi (quod Boream respicit)," and again on p. 178, line 3.

[14] Page 4, line 2. Page 4, line 2. Melphitani.—The inhabitants of Amalfi in the kingdom of Naples. The claim of the discovery or invention of the mariners' compass in the year 1302 by one Joannes Goia, or Gioia, also named as Flavio Goia, has been much disputed. In Guthrie's New System of Modern Geography (London, 1792, p. 1036), in the Chronology, is set down for the year 1302:

"The mariner's compass invented, or improved by Givia, of Naples. The flower de luce, the arms of the Duke of Anjou, then King of Naples, was placed by him at the point of the needle, in compliment to that prince."

In 1808 an elaborate treatise was printed at Naples, by Flaminius Venanson with the title, De l'invention de la Boussole Nautique. Venanson, who cites many authorities, endeavours to prove that if Gioia did not discover magnetic polarity he at least invented the compass, that is to say, he pivotted the magnetic needle and placed it in a box, with a card affixed above it divided into sixteen parts bearing the names of the sixteen principal winds. He alleges in proof that the compass-card is emblazoned in the armorial bearings of the city of Amalfi. This view was combatted in the famous letter of Klaproth to Humboldt publisht in Paris in 1834. He shows that the use of the magnetized needle was known in Europe toward the end of the twelfth century; that the Chinese knew of it and used it for finding the way on land still earlier; that there is no compass-card in the arms of the city of Amalfi; but he concedes that Gioia may have improved the compass in 1302 by adding the wind-rose card. The most recent contributions to the question are a pamphlet by Signorelli, Sull' invenzione della Bussola nautica, ragionamento di Pietro Napoli Signorelli, segretario perpetuo della Società Pontaniana; letto nella seduta del 30 settembre 1860; Matteo Camera's Memorie Storico-diplomatiche dell' antica città e ducato di Amalfi (Salerno, 1876); and Admiral Luigi Fincati's work Il Magnete, la Calamita, e la Bussola (Roma, 1878). An older mention of Gioia is to be found in Blundevile's Exercises (3rd edition, 1606, pp. 257-258). See also Crescentio della Nautica Mediterranea, (Roma, 1607, p. 253), and Azuni, Dissertazione sull' origine della bussola nautica (Venezia, 1797).

There appears to be a slip in Gilbert's reference to Andrea Doria, as he has confounded the town of Amalfi in Principato Citra with Melfi in Basilicata.

One of the sources relied upon by historians for ascribing this origin of the compass is the Compendia dell' Istoria del Regno di Napoli, of Collenuccio (Venet., MDXCI.), p. 5.

"Nè in questo tacerò Amalfi, picciola terra, & capo della costa di Picentia, alia quale tutti quelli, che'l mar caualcano, vfficiosamente eterno gratie debono referire, essendo prima in quella terra trovato l'vso, & l'artificio della calamita, & del bussolo, col quale i nauiganti, la stella Tramontana infallibilmente mirando, direzzano il lor corso, si come è publica fama, & gli Amalfitani si gloriano, nè senza ragione dalli piu si crede, essendo cosa certa, che gli antichi tale instromento non hebbero; nè essendo mai in tutto falso quello, che in molto tempo è da molti si diuolga."

Another account is to be found in the Historiarum sui temporis, etc., of Paulus Jovius (Florent., 1552), tom. ii., cap. 25, p. 42.

"Quum essem apud Philippum superuenit Ioachinus Leuantius Ligur a Lotrechio missus, qui deposceret captiuos; sed ille negauit se daturum, quando eos ad ipsum Andream Auriam ammirantem deducendos esse iudicaret. Vgonis uerò cadauer, ut illudentium Barbarorum contumeliis eriperetur, ad Amalphim urbem delatum est, in ædeque Andreæ apostoli, tumultuariis exequiis tumulatum. In hac urbe citriorum & medicorum odoratis nemoribus æquè peramœna & celebri, Magnetis usum nauigantibus hodie familiarem & necessarium, adinuentum suisse incolæ asserunt."

Flavius Blondus, whom Gilbert cites, gives the following reference, in which Gioia's name is not mentioned, in the section upon Campania Felix of his Italy (Blondi Flavii Forlinensis ... Italia Illustrata, Basiliæ, 1531, p. 420).

"Sed fama est qua Amalphitanos audiuimus gloriari, magnetis usum, cuius adminiculo nauigantes ad arcton diriguntur, Amalphi suisse inuentum, quicquid uero habeat in ea re ueritas, certû est id noctu nauigandi auxilium priscis omnino suisse incognitum."

There is a further reference to the alleged Amalphian in Caelius Calcagninus De re nautica commentatio. (See Thesaurus Græcarum Antiquitatum, 1697, vol. xi., p. 761.) On the other hand Baptista Porta, who wrote in Naples in 1558 (Magia Naturalis) distinctly sets aside the claim as baseless.

William Barlowe, in The Navigators Supply (1597, p. A3), says: "Who was the first inuentor of this Instrument miraculous, and endued, as it were, with life, can hardly be found. The lame tale of one Flauius at Amelphis, in the kingdome of Naples, for to haue deuised it, is of very slender probabilitie. Pandulph Collenutius writing the Neapolitane historie telleth vs, that they of Amelphis say, it is a common opinion there, that it was first found out among them. But Polidore Virgil, who searched most diligently for the Inuentors of things, could neuer heare of this opinion (yet himselfe being an Italian) and as he confesseth in the later ende of his third booke de inventoribus rerum, could neuer vnderstand anything concerning the first inuention of this instrument."

According to Park Benjamin (Intellectual Rise in Electricity, p. 146) the use of the pivotted compass arose and spread not from Amalfi at the hands of Italians in the fourteenth century, but from Wisbuy, at the hands of the Finns, in the middle of the twelfth century.

Hakewill (An Apologie or Declaration of the Power and Providence of God, London, 1673, pp. 284-285) says:

"But Blondus, who is therein followed by Pancirollus, both Italians, will not haue Italy loose the praise thereof, telling vs that about 300 yeares agoe it was found out at Malphis or Melphis, a Citty in the Kingdome of Naples in the Province of Campania, now called Terra di Lovorador. But for the Author of it, the one names him not, and the other assures vs, he is not knowne: yet Salmuth out of Ciezus & Gomara confidently christens him with the name of Flavius, and so doth Du Bartas in those excellent verses of his touching this subject.

"It may well be then that Flavius the Melvitan was the first inventor of guiding the ship by the turning of the needle to the North: but some German afterwards added to the Compasse the 32 points of the winde in his owne language, whence other Nations haue since borrowed it."

[15] Page 4, line 14. Page 4, line 14. Paulum Venetum.—The reference is to Marco Polo. He returned in 1295 from his famous voyage to Cathay. But the oft-repeated tale that he first introduced the knowledge of the compass into Europe on his return is disposed of by several well-established facts. Klaproth (op. citat., p. 57) adduces a mention of its use in 1240 in the Eastern Mediterranean, recorded in a work written in 1242 by Bailak of Kibdjak. And the passages in the Iceland Chronicle, and in Alexander of Neckham are still earlier.

[16] Page 4, line 17. Page 4, line 17. Goropius. See Hispanica Ioannis Goropii Becani (Plantin edition, Antv., 1580), p. 29. This is a discussion of the etymologies of the names of the points of the compass: but is quite unauthoritative.

[17] Page 4, line 23. Page 4, line 26. Paruaim.—Respecting this reference, Sir Philip Magnus has kindly furnisht the following note. A clue to the meaning of Parvaim, which should be written in English letters with a v, not a u, will be found in 2 Chronicles, iii. 6. In the verse quoted the author speaks of gold as the gold of Parvaim, וְהַזָּהָב זְהַב פַּרְוָיִם‎, and פּרוים‎ Parvaim is taken as a gold-producing region. It is regarded by some as the same as Ophir. The word is supposed to be cognate with a Sanskrit word pûrva signifying "prior, anterior, oriental." There is nothing in the root indicating gold. A form similar to Parvaim, and also a proper name, is Sepharvaim, found in 2 Kings, xix. 13, and in Isaiah, xxxvii. 13, and supposed to be the name of a city in Assyria.

[18] Page 4, line 35. Page 4, line 41. Cabot's observation of the variation of the compass is narrated in the Geografia of Livio Sanuto (Vinegia, 1588, lib. i., fol. 2). See also Fournier's Hydrographie, lib. xi., cap. 10.

[19] Page 4, line 36. Page 4, line 42. Gonzalus Oviedus.—The reference is to Gonzalo Fernandez de Oviedo y Valdès. Summario de la Historia general y natural de las Indias occidentales, 1525, p. 48, where the author speaks of the crossing of "la linea del Diametro, donde las Agujas hacen la diferencia del Nordestear, ò Noroestear, que es el parage de las Islas de los Açores."

[20] Page 5, line 8. Page 5, line 11. Petri cujusdam Peregrini.—This opusculum is the famous letter of Peter Peregrinus written in 1269, of which some twenty manuscript copies exist in various libraries in Oxford, Rome, Paris, etc., and of which the oldest printed edition is that of 1558 (Augsburg). See also Libri, Histoire des Sciences Mathématiques (1838); Bertelli in Boncompagni's Bull. d. Bibliogr. T. I. and T. IV. (1868 and 1871), and Hellmann's Rara Magnetica (1898). A summary of the contents of Peregrinus's book will be found in Park Benjamin's Intellectual Rise in Electricity (1895), pp. 164-185.

[21] Page 5, line 12. Page 5, line 15. Johannes Taisner Hannonius.—Taisnier, or Taysnier, of Hainault, was a plagiarist who took most of the treatise of Peregrinus and publisht it in his Opusculum... de Natura Magnetis (Coloniæ, 1562), of which an English translation by Richard Eden was printed by R. Jugge in 1579.

[22] Page 5, line 18. Page 5, line 23. Collegium Conimbricense.—This is a reference to the commentaries on Aristotle by the Jesuits of Coimbra. The work is Colegio de Coimbra da Companhia de Jesu, Cursus Conimbricensis in Octo libros Physicorum (Coloniæ, sumptibus Lazari Ratzneri, 1599). Other editions: Lugd. 1594; and Colon., 1596. The later edition of 1609, in the British Museum, has the title Commentariorum Collegii Conimbricensis in octo libros physicorum.

[23] Page 5, line 25. Page 5, line 31. Martinus Cortesius.—His Arte de Navegar (Sevilla, 1556) went through various editions in Spanish, Italian, and English. Eden's translation was publisht 1561, and again in 1609.

[24] Page 5, line 26. Page 5, line 33. Bessardus.—Toussaincte de Bessard wrote a treatise, Dialogue de la Longitude (Rouen, 1574), which gives some useful notes of nautical practice, and of the French construction of the compass. Speaking of the needle he says: "Elle ne tire pas au pole du monde: ains regarde, au Pole du Zodiaque, comme il sera discoursu, cy apres" (p. 34). On p. 50 he speaks of "l'aiguille Aymantine." On p. 108 he refers to Mercator's Carte Générale, and denies the existence of the alleged loadstone rock. On p. 15 he gives the most naïve etymologies for the terms used: thus he assigns as the derivation of Sud the Latin sudor, because the south is hot, and as that of Ouest that it comes from Ou and Est. "Come, qui diroit, Ou est-il? à scauoir le Soleil, qui estoit nagueres sur la terre."

[25] Page 5, line 28. Page 5, line 35. Jacobus Severtius.—Jacques Severt, whose work, De Orbis Catoptrici sev mapparvm mvndi principiis descriptione ac usu libri tres (Paris, 1598), would have probably lapsed into obscurity, but being just newly publisht was mentioned by Gilbert for its follies.

[26] Page 5, line 30. Page 5, line 38. Robertus Norman.—Author of the rare volume The Newe Attractiue, publisht in London, 1581, and several times reprinted. This work contains an account of Norman's discovery of the Dip of the magnetic needle, and of his investigation of it by means of the Dipping-needle, which he invented. He was a compassmaker of the port of London, and lived at Limehouse.

[27] Page 5, line 32. Page 5, line 40. Franciscus Maurolycus.—The work to which the myth of the magnetic mountains is thus credited is, D. Francisci Abbatis Messanensis Opuscula Mathematica, etc. (Venet, MDLXXV, p. 122a). "Sed cur sagitta, vel obelus à vero Septentrione, quandoque ad dextram, quandoque ad sinistram declinat? An quia sagitta, sicut magnes (cuius est simia) non verum Septentrionem, sed insulam quandam (quam Olaus Magnus Gothus in sua geographia vocat insulam magnetum) semper ex natura inspicere cogitur?"

[28] Page 5, line 35. Page 5, line 43. Olaus Magnus.—The famous Archbishop of Upsala, who wrote the history of the northern nations (Historia de Gentibus Septentrionalibus), of which the best edition, illustrated with many woodcuts, appeared in Rome in 1555. An English edition entitled A Compendious History of the Goths, Swedes, and Vandals, and Other Northern Nations was printed in London in 1658; but it is much abbreviated and has none of the quaint woodcuts. The reference on p. 5 appears to be to the following passage on p. 409 (ed. 1555). "Demum in suppolaribus insulis magnetum montes reperiuntur, quorum fragmentis ligna fagina certo tempore applicata, in saxeam duritiem, et vim attractivam convertuntur," or the following on p. 89: "Magnetes enim in extremo Septentrionis veluti montes, unde nautica directio constat, reperiuntur: quorum etiam magnetum tam vehemens est operatio, ut certis lignis fagineis conjuncti, ea vertunt in sui duritiem, & naturam attractivam." On p. 343 is a woodcut depicting the penalties inflicted by the naval laws upon any one who should maliciously tamper with the compass or the loadstone, "qui malitiosè nauticum gnomonem, aut compassum, & præcipuè portionem magnetis, unde omnium directio dependet, falsaverit." He was to be pinned to the mast by a dagger thrust through his hand. It will be noted that the ships carried both a compass, and a piece of loadstone wherewith to stroke the needle.

There is in the Basel edition of this work, 1567, a note ad lectorem, on the margin of Carta 16a, as follows:

"Insula 30 milliarium in longitud. & latitud. Polo arctico subjecta.

"Vltra quam directorium nauticum bossolo dicũ uires amittit: propterea quòd ilia insula plena est magnetum."

This myth of the magnetic mountains, probably originating with Nicander, appears, possibly from an independent source, in the East, in China, and in the tales of the Arabian Nights.

Ptolemy gives the following account in his Geographia (lib. vii., cap. 2):

Φέρονται δὲ καὶ ἄλλαι συνεχεῖς δέκα νῆσοι καλούμεναι Μανίολαι ἐν ἄις φάσι τὰ σιδήρους ἔχοντα ἥλους πλοῖα κατέχεσθαι, μήποτε τῆς Ἡρικλείας λίθου περὶ αὐτὰς γενομένης, καὶ διὰ τοῦτο ἐπιούροις ναυπηγεῖσθαι. Some editions omit the name of the Manioles from the passage.

No two authorities agree as to the place of these alleged magnetic mountains. Some place them in the Red Sea. Fracastorio, De Sympathia et Antipathia, cap. 7 (Opera omnia, Giunta edition, 1574, p. 63), gives the following reason for the variation of the compass:

"Nos igitur diligentius rem considerãtes dicimus causam, q˜ perpendiculum illud ad polum vertatur, esse montes ferri, & magnetis, qui sub polo sunt, vt negociatores affirmant, quorum species per incredibilem distantiam vsque ad maria nostra propagata ad perpendiculum vsq;, vbi est magnes, consuetam attractionem facit: propter distantiam autem quum debilis sit, non moueret quidem magnetem, nisi esset in perpendiculo: quare & si non trahit vsq; ac. principium, vnde effluxit, at mouet tamẽ, & propinquiorem facit, quo potest. Quod si naues sorte vllæ propinquiores sint illis montibus, ferrum omne earũ cuellitur, propter quod nauigijs incolæ vtuntur clauis ligneis astrictis."

In the last chapter of his De Sympathia, Fracastorio returns to the subject in consequence of some doubts expressed by Giambattista Rhamnusio, seeing that the loadstones in the Island of Elba do not sensibly deflect the magnet. Fracastorio replies thus (p. 76, op. citat.):

"Primum igitur vtrum sub Polo sint. Magnetis mõtes, nec ne, sub ambiguo relinquamus, scimus enim esse, qui scribãt planas magis esse eas regiones, de quo Paulus Iouius Ep˜us Nucerinus Luculẽtus historiarũ nostri tẽporis scriptor, circa eã Sarmatiæ partem, quæ Moscouia nũc dicitur, diligentẽ inquisitionem ab incolis fecit, qui ne eos etiã inueniri montes retulere, qui Rhyphei ab antiquis dicti sunt: meminimus tamẽ nos quasdam chartas vidisse earum, quas mundi mappas appellãt, in quibus sub polo montes notati erant (qui Magnetis montes inscripti fuerant). Siue igitur sint, siue non sint ij montes, nihil ad nos in præsentiarum attinet, quando per montes polo subiectos cathenam illam montium intelligimus, qui ad septentrionem spectant tanti, & tam vasti, ac Ferri & Magnetis feraces: qui, & si magis distant à nostro mari, q˜ Iluæ insulæ montes, potentiores tamen sunt ad mouendum perpendiculum propter abundantiam & copiã Ferri, & Magnetis. Fortasse autem, & qui in Ilua est Magnes, non multæ actionis est in ea minera: multi enim dũ in minera sunt, minus valent, q˜ extracti, q˜ spirituales species sua habeant impedimenta: signum autem parum valere in sua minera Iluæ insulæ Magnetem, q˜ tam propinquus quum sit nauigijs illac prætereuntibus, perpendiculum tamen non ad se cõuertit."

Aldrovandi in the Musæum Metallicum (Bonon., 1648, p. 554) gives another version of the fable:

"Nonnulli, animadversa hac Magnetis natura, scripserunt naves, quibus in Calecutanam regionem navigatur, clavis ferreis non figi, ob magneticorum frequentiam scopulorum, quoniam facilè dissolverentur. Sed Garzias in Historia Aromatum id fabulosum esse tradidit: quandoquidem plures naues Calecutanæ regionis, & illius tractus, ferreis clauis iunctas obseruauit: immò addidit naues in insulis Maldiuis ligneis quidem clauis copulari, non quia à Magnete sibi metuant, sed quoniam ferri inopia laborant."

According to Aldrovandi (p. 563, op. citat.) the magnetic mountains are stated by Sir John Mandeville to be in the region of Pontus.

Lipenius in his Navigatio Salomonis Ophritica illustrata (Witteb., 1660), which is a mine of curious learning, in discussing the magnetic mountains quotes the reply of Socrates to the inquirer who asked him as to what went on in the infernal regions, saying that he had never been there nor had he ever met any one who had returned thence.

The loadstone rock figures in several early charts. In Nordenskiöld's Facsimile Atlas (Stockholm, 1889) is given a copy of the Map of Johan Ruysch from an edition of Ptolemy, publisht in Rome in 1508, which shows four islands within the ice-bound Arctic regions. South of these islands and at the east of the coast of Greenland is the inscription: Hic compassus navium non tenet, nec naves quæ ferrum tenent revertere valent. To which (on p. 63) Nordenskiöld adds the comment: Sagan on magnetberg, som skulle draga till sig fartyg förande jern, är gamal. And he recalls the reference of Ptolemy to the magnetic rocks in the Manioles. A second inscription is added to Ruysch's map in the ornamental margin that borders the Arctic islands. Legere est in libro de inventione fortunati sub polo arctico rupem esse excelsam ex lapide magnete 33 miliarium germanorum ambitu. This refers to a matter recorded in Hakluyt's Principall Navigations (Lond., 1589, p. 249), namely: "A Testimonie of the learned Mathematician, maister John Dee, touching the foresaid voyage of Nicholas de Linna. Anno 1360 a frier of Oxford, being a good Astronomer, went in companie with others to the most Northren islands of the world, and there leaving his company together, he travelled alone, and purposely described all the Northern islands, with the indrawing seas: and the record thereof at his return he delivered to the king of England. The name of which booke is Inventio Fortunata (aliter fortunæ) qui liber incipit a gradu 54 usq. ad polum."

The situation of the alleged loadstone rock is thus described by T. Blundevile in his Exercises in the chapter entitled A plaine and full description of Peter Plancius his vniuersall Map, seruing both for sea and land, and by him lately put foorth in the yeare of our Lord, 1592.... Written in our mother tongue by M. Blundeuill, Anno Domini 1594. The passage is quoted from p. 253 of the third edition (1606):

"Now betwixt the 72. and 86. degrees of North latitude he setteth downe two long Ilands extending from the West towardes the East somewhat beyond the first Meridian, and from the saide Meridian more Eastward he setteth downe other two long Ilandes ... and hee saith further that right under the North pole there is a certaine blacke and most high rocke which hath in circuite thirtie and three leagues, which is nintie and nine miles, and that the long Iland next to the Pole on the West is the best and most healthfull of all the North parts. Next to the foresaide Ilandes more Southward hee setteth downe the Ilandes of Crocklande and Groynelande, making them to haue a farre longer and more slender shape then all other mappes doe.... Moreouer at the East end of the last Ilande somewhat to the Southwarde, he placeth the Pole of the Lodestone which is called in Latine Magnes, euen as Mercator doth in his Mappe who supposing the first Meridian to passe through Saint Marie or Saint Michael, which are two of the outermost Ilandes of the Azores Eastwarde, placeth the Pole of the stone in the seuentie fiue degree of Latitude, but supposing the first Meridian to passe through the Ile Coruo, which is the furthest Ile of the Azores Westwarde, he placeth the Pole of the Lodestone in the seuentie seuen degree of Latitude."

Further, in the chapter on The Arte of Nauigation in the same work (p. 332, ed. citat.), Blundevile says:

"But whereas Mercator affirmeth that there should bee a mine or great rocke of Adamant, wherunto all other lesser rockes or Needles touched with the Lodestone doe incline as to their chiefe fountaine, that opinion seemeth to mee verie straunge, for truely I rather beleeue with Robert Norman that the properties of the Stone, as well in drawing steele, as in shewing the North Pole, are secret vertues given of GOD to that stone for mans necessarie vse and behoofe, of which secrete vertues no man is able to shewe the true cause."

The following is one of the inscriptions in the compartments of the great Chart of Mercator entitled Ad Usum Navigantium, published in 1569:

"Testatur Franciscus Diepanus peritissimus nauarchus volubiles libellas, magnetis virtute infectas recta mundi polum respicere in insulis C. Viridis, Solis, Bonauista, et Maio, cui proxime astipulantur qui in Tercera, aut S. Maria (insulæ sunt inter Açores) id fieri dicunt, pauci in earundem occidentalissima Corvi nomine id contingere opinantur. Quia vero locorum longitudinis a communi magnetis et mundi meridiano iustis de causis initium sumere oportet, plurium testimonium sequutus primum meridianum per dictas C. Viridis insulas protraxi, et quum alibi plus minusque a polo deuiante magnete polum aliquum peculiarem esse oporteat quo magnetes ex omni mundi parte despiciant, euum hoc quo assignaui loco existere adhibita declinatione magnetis Ratisbonæ obseruata didici. Supputaui autem eius poli situm etiam respectu insulæ Corui, ut iuxta extremo primi meridiani positus extremi etiam termini, intra quos polum hunc inueniri necesse est, conspicui fierent, donec certius aliquod nauclerorum obseruatio attulerit."

Not all the map-makers were as frank as Paulus Merula, the author of a Cosmographia Generalis, printed by Plantin in 1605, at Leyden. For in the description of his tabula universalis (op. citat. lib. iii., cap. 9) he says that he does not believe in the magnetic islands; but that he has put them into his chart lest unskilful folk should think that he had been so careless as to leave them out!

In the well-known myth of Ogier the Dane, immortalized by William Morris in the Earthly Paradise (London, 1869, vol. i., p. 625), the loadstone rock is an island in the far North. But this story is not one of the Scandinavian sagas, and belongs to the Carlovingian cycle of heroic poems, of which the chief is the Chanson de Roland; and Ogier le Danois is really not a Dane but an Ardennois.

In the Middle-High German epic of Kudrun, the adventures of the fleet of Queen Hilda when attracted by the loadstone mountain at Givers, in the North Sea, are narrated at some length. (See Kudrun, herausgegeben und erklärt von Ernst Martin. Halle, 1872.) One stanza will serve as a sample:

which may be rendered:

Recent magnetic research has shown that while there are no magnetic mountains that would account for the declination of the compass in general, yet there are minor local variations that can only be accounted for by the presence of magnetic reefs or rocks. The reader is referred to the account of the magnetic survey of Great Britain in the Philosophical Transactions (1890) by Professors Rücker and Thorpe. The well-known rocky peak the Riffelhorn above Zermatt, in Switzerland, produces distinct perturbations in the direction of the compass within half a mile of its base. Such local perturbations are regularly used in Sweden for tracing out the position of underground lodes of iron ore. See Thalén, Sur la Recherche des Mines de Fer à l'aide de Mesures magnétiques (Soc. Royale des Sciences d'Upsal, 1877); or B. R. Brough, The Use of the Magnetic Needle in exploring for Iron Ore (Scientific American, Suppl. No. 608, p. 9708, Aug. 27, 1887).

Quite recently Dr. Henry Wilde, F.R.S., has endeavoured to elucidate the deviations of the compass as the result of the configurations of land and sea on the globe, by means of a model globe in which the ocean areas are covered with thin sheet iron. This apparatus Dr. Wilde calls a Magnetarium. See Proc. Roy. Soc., June, 1890, Jan., 1891, and June, 1891. An actual magnetic rock exists in Scandinavia, the following account of it being given in the Electrical Review of New York, May 3, 1899:

"The island of Bornholm in the Baltic, which consists of a mass of magnetic iron ore, is much feared by mariners. On being sighted they discontinue steering by compass, and go instead by lighthouses. Between Bornholm and the mainland there is also a dangerous bank of rock under water. It is said that the magnetic influence of this ore bank is so powerful that a balanced magnetic needle suspended freely in a boat over the bank will take a vertical position."

[29] Page 5, line 35. Page 5, line 43. Josephus Costa.—This is unquestionably a misprint for Acosta (Joseph de), the Jesuit, whose work Historia natural y moral de las Indias was publisht at Seville in 1590. An Italian edition appeared at Venice in 1596. The English edition, translated by E. Grimestone, The Naturall and Morall Historie of the East and West Indies, was publisht in London in 1604 and 1878. There are in Gilbert's book references to two writers of the name of Costa or Costæus, Joannes Costa of Lodi, who edited Galen and Avicenna (see pp. 3 and 62), and Filippo Costa of Mantua, who wrote on antidotes and medicaments (see p. 141). The passage to which Gilbert refers is in Acosta's Historia (ed. 1590, p. 64).

"Deziame a mi vn piloto muy diestro Portugues q˜ eran quatro puntos en todo el orbe, donde se afixaua el aguja con el Norte, y contaualas por sus nombres, de que no me acuerdo bien. Vno destos es el paraje de la Isla del Cueruo, en las Terceras, o Islas de Açores, como es cosa y a muy sabida. Passando di alli a mas altura, Noruestea, que es dezir, q˜ declina al Poniente ... que me digã la causa desta efecto?... Porque vn poco de hierro de fregarse cõ la piedra Iman ...

"Mejor es, como dize Gregorio Theologo, que a la Fe se sujete la razon, pues aun en su casa no sabe bien entenderse...."

[30] Page 5, line 36. Page 5, line 45. Livius Sanutus.—Livio Sanuto publisht at Venice in 1588 a folio work, Geografia distinta in xii Libri; ne' quali, oltre l'esplicatione di nostri luoghi di Tolomeo, della Bussola e dell' Aguglia, si dichiarono le provincie ... dell' Africa. In this work all Liber i. (pages 1-13) deals with observations of the compass, mentioning Sebastian Cabot, and other navigators. He gives a map of Africa, showing the central lakes out of which flow the Zaires fluvius and the Zanberes fluvius.

[31] Page 6, line 2. Page 6, line 5. Fortunius Affaitatus.—The work of Affaytatus, Physicæ ac astronomiæ considerationes, was publisht in Venice in 1549.

[32] Page 6, line 3. Page 6, line 6. Baptista Porta.—The reference is to his celebrated Magia naturalis, the first edition of which came out in 1558 at Naples. An English edition, Natural Magick by John Baptista Porta, a Neapolitaine, was printed in London, 1658. Book seven of this volume treats "Of the wonders of the Load-stone." In the proem to this book Porta says: "I knew at Venice R. M. Paulus, the Venetian, that was busied in the same study: he was Provincial of the Order of servants, but now a most worthy Advocate, from whom I not only confess, that I gained something, but I glory in it, because of all the men I ever saw, I never saw any man more learned, or more ingenious, having obtained the whole body of learning; and is not only the Splendor and Ornament of Venice or Italy, but of the whole world." The reference is to Fra Paolo Sarpi, better known as the historian of the Council of Trent. Sarpi was himself known to Gilbert.

His relations with Gilbert are set forth in the memoir prefixt to the edition of his works, Opere di Fra Paolo Sarpi, Servita ... in Helmstat, MDCCLXI, p. 83. "Fino a questi giorni continuava il Sarpi a raccorre osservazioni sulla declinazione dell' Ago Calamitato; e poi ch' egli, atteso il variare di tal declinazione, assurdità alcuna non trovava riguardo al pensamento dell' Inglese Guglielmo Gilberto, cioè, che l'interno del nostro Globo fosse gran Calamita...." Here follows a quotation from a letter of Sarpi to Lescasserio:

"... Unde cuspidem trahi a tanta mole terrena, quæ supereminet non absurde putavit Gullielmus Gilbertus, et in eo meridiano respicere recta polum, cave putes observatorem errasse. Est Vir accuratissimus, et interfuit omnibus observationibus, quas plures olim fecimus, et aliquas in sui gratiam, et cum arcubus vertici cupreo innitentibus, et cum innatantibus aquæ, et cum brevibus, et cum longis, quibus modis omnibus et Hierapoli usus suit."

Sarpi had correspondence with Gilbert, Bacon, Grotius, and Casaubon. He also wrote on magnetism and other topics in materia di Fisica, but these writings have perisht. He appears to have been the first to recognize that fire destroyed the magnetic properties. (See Fra Paolo Sarpi, the greatest of the Venetians by the Rev. Alexander Robertson, London, 1894; see also the notice of Sarpi in Park Benjamin's Intellectual Rise in Electricity.)

[33] Page 6, line 7. Page 6, line 11.: R. M. Paulus Venetus. See preceding note.

[34] Page 6, line 21. Page 6, line 28.: Franciscus Rueus.—Francois de la Rue, author of De Gemmis Aliquot ... (Paris, 1547). Amongst other fables narrated by Rueus is that if a magnet is hung on a balance, when a piece of iron is attracted and adheres to the magnet, it adds nothing to the weight!

[35] Page 6, line 25. Page 6, line 33.: Serapio.—This account of the magnetic mountains will be found in an early pharmacology printed in 1531 (Argentorati, G. Ulricher Andlenus), with the title "In hoc volumine continetur insignium medicorum Joan. Serapionis Arabis de Simplicibus Medicinis opus præclarum et ingens, Averrois Arabis de eisdem liber eximius, Rasis filius Zachariæ de eisdem opusculum perutile." It was edited by Otho Brunsels. Achilles P. Gasser, in his Appendix to the Augsburg edition of Peregrinus, gives a reference to Serapio Mauritanus, parte 2, cap. 394, libri de medicinis compositis.

[36] Page 6, line 30. Page 6, line 39.: Olaus Magnus. See note to p. 5.

[37] Page 6, line 34. Page 6, line 44.: Hali Abas.—A reference is given in Gasser's (1558) edition of Peregrinus to Haliabbas Arabs, lib. 2, practicæ cap. 45, Regalis Dispositionis Medicinæ. The passage to which Gilbert refers is found in the volume Liber totius medicinæ necessaria cōtinens ... quem Haly filius Abbas ... edidit ... et a Stephano ex arabica lingua reductus. (Lugd., 1523, 4to.) Liber Primus. Practice, Cap xlv. de speciebus lapidum, § 466. "Lapis magnetes filis e vtute sadenego: & aiunt qm si teneat^r in manu mitigat q sunt in pedib^s ipis dolores ac spasmū."

Mr. A. G. Ellis identifies the noun sadenegum as a Latin corruption of the Arabic name of hæmatite, shâdanaj.

[38] Page 6, line 36. Page 6, line 46.: Pictorius.—His poem was publisht at Basel, 1567. See also note on Marbodæus, p. 7, line 20, below.

[39] Page 6, line 36. Page 7, line 1.: Albertus Magnus.—Albertus, the celebrated Archbishop of Ratisbon, is responsible for propagating sundry of the myths of the magnet; and Gilbert never loses a chance of girding at him. The following examples are taken from the treatise De mineralibus et rebus metallicis (Liber II. de lapidibus preciosis), Venet., 1542.

p. 171. "Et quod mirabile videtur multis his lapis [adamas] quando Magneti supponitur ligat Magnetem et non permittit ipsum ferrum trahere."

p. 193. "Vnctus autẽ lapis alleo non trahit, si superponitur ei Adamas iterum non attrahit, ita quod paruus Adamas magnũ ligat Magnetẽ. Inventus autẽ est nostris tẽporibus Magnes qui ab uno angulo traxit ferrũ et ab alio fugavit, et hunc Aristot. ponit aliud genus esse Magnetis. Narrauit mihi quidam ex nostris sociis experimẽtator quod uidit Federicum Imperatorem habere Magnetem qui non traxit ferrum, sed ferrum uiceuersa traxit lapidem."

The first edition of this work de mineralibus appears to have been publisht in Venice as a folio in 1495.

[40] Page 7, line 9. Page 7, line 15. Gaudentius Merula.—This obscure passage is from Liber IIII., cap. xxi., Lapides, of the work Memorabilium Gaudentii Merulæ... (Lugd., 1556), where we find:

"Qui magneti vrsæ sculpserit imaginem, quãdo Luna melius illuc aspiciat, & filo ferreo suspẽderit, compos fiet vrsæ cælestis virtutis: verùm cum Saturni radiis vegetetur, satius fuerit eam imaginem non habere: scribunt enim Platonici malos dæmones septentrionales esse" (p. 287).

"Trahit autem magnes ferrum ad se, quod ferro sit ordine superior apud vrsum" (p. 287).

The almost equally obscure passage in the De triplici vita of Marsiglio Ficino (Basil., 1532) runs:

"Videmus in specula nautarum indice poli libratum acum affectum in extremitate Magnete moueri ad Vrsam, illuc uidelicet trahente Magnete: quoniam & in lapide hoc præualet uirtus Vrsæ, & hinc transfertur in ferrum, & ad Vrsam trahit utrunq;. Virtus autem eiusmodi tum ab initio infusa est, tum continue Vrsæ radijs uegetatur, Forsitan ita se habet Succinum ad polum alterum & ad paleas. Sed dic interea, Cur Magnes trahit ubiq; ferrum? non quia simile, alioquin & Magnetem Magnes traheret multo magis, ferrumq; ferrū: non quia superior in ordine corporum, imò superius est lapillo metallum ... Ego autem quum hæc explorata hactenus habuissem admodum gratulabar, cogitabamq; iuuenis adhuc Magneti pro uiribus inscluperet (sic) coelestis Vrsæ figuram, quando Luna melius illuc aspiciat, & ferro tūc filo collo suspendere. Sperabam equidem ita demum uirtutis me sideris illius compotem fore," &c. (p. 172).

[41] Page 7, line 14. Page 7, line 20. Ruellius.—Joannes Ruellius wrote a herbal De Natura Stirpium, Paris, 1536, which contains a very full account of amber, and a notice of the magnet (p. 125) and of the fable about garlic. But on p. 530 of the same work he ridicules Plutarch for recording this very matter.

[42] Page 7, line 20. Page 7, line 27. Marbodæus Gallus.—This rare little book is entitled Marbodei Galli Poetæ vetustissimi de lapidibus pretiosis Enchiridion. It was printed at Paris in 1531. The Freiburg edition, also of 1531, has the commentaries of Pictorius. The poem is in Latin hexameters. After a preface of twenty-one lines the virtues of stones are dealt with, the paragraph beginning with a statement that Evax, king of the Arabs, is said to have written to Nero an account of the species, names and colours of stones, their place of origin and their potencies; and that this work formed the basis of the poem. The alleged magical powers of the magnet are recited in Caput I., Adamas. Caput XLIII., Magnes, gives further myths. The commentary of Pictorius gives references to earlier writers, Pliny, Dioscorides, Bartholomæus Anglicus, Solinus, Serapio, and to the book de lapidibus erroneously ascribed to Aristotle.

The following is a specimen of the poem of Marbodeus:

This poem was reprinted (1854) in Migne's Patrologia. In 1799 Johann Beckmann issued an annotated variorum edition of Marbodeus (Marbodi Liber Lapidvm sev de Gemmis..., Göttingæ, 1799), in which there is a bibliography of the poem, the first edition of which appears to have been publisht in 1511, at Vienna, thirteen other editions being described. Beckmann adds many illustrative notes, and a notice of the Arabian Evax, who is supposed to have written the treatise de lapidibus. Not the least curious part is a French translation alleged to have been written in 1096, of which Chap. XIX. on the Magnet begins thus:

[43] Page 7, line 21. Page 7, line 28. echeneidis.—The echeneis, or sucking-fish, reputed to have magical or magnetic powers, is mentioned by many writers. As an example, see Fracastorio, De Sympathia et Antipathia, lib. i., cap. 8, De Echineide, quomodo firmare nauigia possit (Giunta edition, Venet., 1574, p. 63). For other references to the Echeneis see Gaudentius Merula (op. citat.) p. 209. Also Dr. Walter Charleton, Physiologia Epicuro Gassendo-Charltoniana (Lond., 1654), p. 375. Compare p. 63, line 3.

[44] Page 7, line 33. Page 7, line 43. Thomas Hariotus, etc.—The four Englishmen named were learned men who had contributed to navigation by magnetic observations. Harriot's account of his voyage to Virginia is printed in Hakluyt's Voyages. Robert Hues (or Hood) wrote a treatise on Globes, the Latin edition of which appeared in 1593 (dedicated to Sir Walter Raleigh), and the English edition in 1638. It was republisht by the Hakluyt Society, 1889. Edward Wright, the mathematician and writer on navigation, also wrote the preface to Gilbert's own book. Abraham Kendall, or Abram Kendal was "Portulano," or sailing-master of Sir Robert Dudley's ship the Bear, and is mentioned in Dudley's Arcano del Mare. On the return of Dudley's expedition in 1595, he joined Drake's last expedition, which sailed that year, and died on the same day as Drake himself, 28 January, 1596. (See Hakluyt, ed. 1809, iv., p. 73.)

[45] Page 7, line 36. Page 8, line 1. Guilielmus Borough.—Borough's book has the title: A Discours of the Variation of the Cumpas, or magneticall Needle. Wherein is Mathematically shewed, the manner of the obseruation, effectes, and application thereof, made by W. B. And is to be annexed to The Newe Attractive of R. N., 1581 (London).

[46] Page 7, line 37. Page 8, line 2. Guilielmus Barlo.—Archdeacon William Barlowe (author, in 1616, of the Magneticall Aduertisements) wrote in 1597 a little work called The Navigators Supply. It gives a description of the ordinary compass, and also one of a special form of meridian compass provided with sights for taking the bearings by the sun.

[47] Page 7, line 37. Page 8, line 3. Robertus Normannus. See Note to p. 5.

[48] Page 8, line 14. Page 8, line 21. illo fabuloso Plinij bubulco.—The following is Pliny's account from Philemon Holland's English version of 1601 (p. 586): "As for the name Magnes that it hath, it tooke it (as Nicander saith) of the first inventor and deviser thereof, who found it (by his saying) upon the mountaine Ida (for now it is to be had in all other countries, like as in Spaine also;) and (by report) a Neat-heard he was: who, as he kept his beasts upon the aforesaid mountaine, might perceive as he went up and downe, both the hob-nailes which were on his shoes, and also the yron picke or graine of his staffe, to sticke unto the said stone."

[49] Page 9, line 22. Page 9, line 30. Differentiæ priscis ex colore.—Pliny's account of the loadstones of different colours which came from different regions is mainly taken from Sotacus. The white magnet, which was friable, like pumice, and which did not draw iron, was probably simply magnesia. The blue loadstones were the best. See p. 587 of Holland's translation of Pliny, London, 1601. St. Isidore (Originum seu Etymologiarum, lib. xvi., cap. 4) says: "Omnis autem magnes tanta melior est, quanto [magis] cæruleus est."

[50] Page 10, line 29. Page 10, line 42. Suarcebergo ... Snebergum & Annæbergum.—In the Stettin editions of 1628 and 1633 these are spelled Swarcebergs ... Schnebergum & Annebergum. The Cordus given as authority for these localities is Valerius Cordus, the commentator on Dioscorides.

[51] Page 11, line 3. Page 11, line 12. Adriani Gilberti viri nobilis.—"Adrian Gylbert of Sandridge in the Countie of Devon, Gentleman" is the description of the person to whom Queen Elizabeth granted a patent for the discovery of a North-West passage to China. See Hakluyt's Voyages, vol. iii., p. 96.

[52] Page 11, line 17. Page 11, line 28. Dicitur a Græcis ηρακλιος.—The discussion of the names of the magnet in different languages by Gilbert in this place is far from complete. He gives little more than is to be found in Pliny. For more complete discussions the reader is referred to Buttmann, Bemerkungen über die Benennungen einiger Mineralien bei den Alten, vorzüglich des Magnetes und des Basaltes (Musæum der Alterthumswissenschaft, Bd. II., pp. 5-52, and 102-104, 1808); G. Fournier, Hydrographie (livre xi., chap. I, 1643); Ulisse Aldrovandi, Musæum Metallicum (Bononiæ, 1648, lib. iv., cap. 2, p. 554); Klaproth, Lettre à M. le Baron A. de Humboldt, sur l'invention de la Boussole, Paris, 1834; T. S. Davies, The History of Magnetical Discovery (Thomson's British Annual, 1837, pp. 250-257); Th. Henri Martin, De l'Aimant, de ses noms divers et de ses variétés suivant les Anciens (Mémoires présentés par divers savants a l'Academie des Inscriptions et Belles-lettres, I^re série, t. vi., I^re partie, 1861); G. A. Palm, Der Magnet in Alterthum (Programm des k. württembergischen Seminars Maulbronn, Stuttgart, 1867). Of these works, those of Klaproth and of Martin are by far the most important. Klaproth states that in modern Greek, in addition to the name μαγνῆτις, the magnet also has the names ἀδάμας and καλαμίτα. The former of these, in various forms, adamas, adamant, aimant, yman, and piedramon, has gone into many languages. Originally the word ἀδάμας (the unconquered) was applied by the Greeks to the hardest of the metals with which they were acquainted, that is to say, to hard-tempered iron or steel, and it was subsequently because of its root-signification also given by them to the diamond for the same reason; it was even given to the henbane because of the deadly properties of that plant. In the writings of the middle ages, in St. Augustine, St. Isidore, Marbodeus, and even in Pliny, we find some confusion between the two uses of adamas to denote the loadstone as well as the diamond. Certainly the word adamas, without ceasing to be applied to the diamond, also designated the loadstone. At the same time (says Martin) the word magnes was preserved, as Pliny records, to designate a loadstone of lesser strength than the adamas. On the other hand, the word diamas, or deamans, had already in the thirteenth century been introduced into Latin to signify the diamond as distinguisht from the magnet. Adamas was rendered aymant in the romance version of the poem of Marbodeus on stones (see Beckmann's variorum edition of 1799, p. 102), and in this form it was for a time used to denote both the magnet and the diamond. Then it gradually became restricted in use to the stone that attracts iron.

Some confusion has also arisen with respect to the Hebrew name of the magnet. Sir W. Snow Harris makes the following statement (Magnetism, p. 5): "In the Talmud it [the loadstone] is termed achzhàb'th, the stone which attracts; and in their ancient prayers it has the European name magnēs." On this point Dr. A. Löwy has furnisht the following notes. The loadstone is termed in one of the Talmudical sections and in the Midrash, Eben Shoebeth (lapis attrahens). This would of course be written אבן שואבת‎. Omitting the ו‎ which marks the participial construction, the words would stand thus: אבן שאבת‎ A person referring to Buxtorf's Lexicon Talmudicum would in the index look out for "Lapis magnesius," or for "magnes." He would then, in the first instance, be referred to the two words already quoted. Not knowing the value of the letters of the Hebrew alphabet, he reads אבן שאבת‎ thus: אכזשאבת‎ achzhab'th. It is true that Buxtorf has inserted in his Lexicon the vocable מַגְנִיסֵס‎, "corruptum ex gr. μάγνης, μαγνήτης, μαγνῆτις, named after the Asiatic city Magnesia." He goes on to say, "Inde Achilles Statius istum lapidem vocavit μαγνήσιαν λίθον. Hinc אבן המגניסס חמשוך הברזל‎. Lapis Magnesius trahit ferrum." Here he quotes from (Sepher) Ikkarem IV., cap. 35.

Kircher, in his Magnes, sive de Arte magnetica (Coloniæ, 1643), gives several other references to Hebrew literature. Others have supposed that the word חלמיש‎ khallamish, which signifies pebble, rock, or hard rock, to be used for the magnet.

As to the other Greek name, σιδηρῖτις, or λίθος σιδηρῖτις this was given not only to the loadstone but also to non-magnetic iron. In the Etymologicum magnum (under the word μαγνῆτις), and in Photius (Quæst. amphiloch., q. 131), it is stated that the name sideritis was given to the loadstone either because of its action on iron, or of its resemblance in aspect to iron, or rather, they say, because the loadstone was originally found in the mines of this metal. Alexander of Aphrodisias expressly says (Quætiones Physicæ, II. 23) that the loadstone appears to be nothing else than γῆ σιδηρῖτις, the earth which yields iron, or the earth of iron.

[53] Page 11, line 19. Page 11, line 29. ab Orpheo.—The reference is to v. 301-328 of the Λιθικά. The passage, as given in Abel's edition (Berol., 1881), begins:

[54] Page 11, line 20. Page 11, line 31. Gallis aimant.—The French word aimant, or aymant, is generally supposed to be derived from adamas. Nevertheless Klaproth (op. citat., p. 19) suggests that the word aimant is a mere literal translation into French of the Chinese word thsu chy, which is the common name of the magnet, and which means loving stone, or stone that loves. All through the east the names of the magnet have mostly the same signification, for example, in Sanskrit it is thoumbaka (the kisser), in Hindustani tchambak.

[55] Page 11, line 20. Page 11, line 32. Italis calamita.—The name calamita, universal in Italian for the magnet, is also used in Roumanian, Croatian, Bosnian, and Wendish. Its supposed derivation from the Hebrew khallamîsh is repudiated by Klaproth, who also points out that the use of καλαμιτα in Greek is quite modern. He adds that the only reasonable explanation of the word calamita is that given by Father Fournier (op. citat.), who says:

"Ils (les marins français) la nomment aussi calamite, qui proprement en français signifie une grenouille verte, parce qu'avant qu'on ait trouvé l'invention de suspendre et de balancer sur un pivot l'aiguille aimantée, nos ancêtres l'enfermaient dans une fiole de verre demi-remplie d'eau, et la faisaient flotter, par le moyen de deux petits fétus, sur l'eau comme une grenouille." Klaproth adds that he entirely agrees with the learned Jesuit, but maintains that the word calamite, to designate the little green frog, called to-day le graisset, la raine, or la rainette, is essentially Greek. For we read in Pliny (Hist. Nat. lib. xxxii., ch. x.): "Ea rana quam Græci calamiten vocant, quoniam inter arundines, fruticesque vivat, minima omnium est et viridissima."

[56] Page 11, line 20. Page 11, line 32. Anglis loadstone & adamant stone.

The English term loadstone is clearly connected with the Anglo-Saxon verb lœdan, to lead, and with the Icelandic leider-stein. There is no doubt that the spelling lodestone would be etymologically more correct, since it means stone that leads not stone that carries a load. The correct form is preserved in the word lode-star.

The word adamant, from adamas, the mediæval word for both loadstone and diamond, also occurs in English for the loadstone, as witness Shakespeare:

[57] Page 11, line 21. Page 11, line 33. Germanis magness, & siegelstein. The Stettin edition of 1628 reads Germanis Magnetstein, Belgis Seylsteen; while that of 1633 reads Germanis Magnetstein, Belgis Sylsteen.

[58] Page 11, line 26. Page 11, line 39. In this line the Greek sentence is, in every known copy of the folio of 1600, corrected in ink upon the text, θαλῆς being thus altered into Θαλῆς, and απομνεμονύουσι into απομνεμονεύουσι. Four lines lower, brackets have been inserted around the words (lapidum specularium modo). These ink corrections must have been made at the printers', possibly by Gilbert's own hand. They have been carried out as errata in the editions of 1628 and 1633. The "facsimile" Berlin reprint of 1892 has deleted them, however. Other ink corrections on pp. 14, 22, 38, 39, 47, 130, and 200 of the folio edition of 1600 are noted in due course.

[59] Page 11, line 29. Page 11, line 45. lapis specularis. This is the mediæval name for mica, but in Elizabethan times known as talc or muscovy stone. Cardan, De Rerum Varietate (Basil., 1557, p. 418), lib. xiiii., cap. lxxii., mentions the use of lapis specularis for windows.

[60] Page 11, line 31. Page 11, line 46.: Germanis Katzensilbar & Talke.—In the editions of 1628 and 1633 this is corrected to Germanis Katzensilber & Talcke. Goethe, in Wilhelm Meister's Travels, calls mica "cat-gold."

[61] Page 12, line 30. Page 12, line 35. integtum appears to be a misprint for integrum, which is the reading of editions 1628 and 1633.

[62] Page 13, line 4. Page 13, line 3. μικρόγη seu Terrella. Although rounded loadstones had been used before Gilbert's time (see Peregrinus, p. 3 of Augsburg edition of 1558, or Baptista Porta, p. 194, of English edition of 1658), Gilbert's use of the spherical loadstone as a model of the globe of the earth is distinctive. The name Terrella remained in the language. In Pepys's Diary we read how on October 2, 1663, he "received a letter from Mr. Barlow with a terella." John Evelyn, in his Diary, July, 1655, mentions a "pretty terella with the circles and showing the magnetic deviations."

A Terrella, 4½ inches in diameter, was presented in 1662 by King Charles I. to the Royal Society, and is still in its possession. It was examined in 1687 (see Phil. Transactions for that year) by the Society to see whether the positions of its poles had changed.

In Grew's Catalogue and Description of the Rarities belonging to the Royal Society and preserved at Gresham College (London, 1681, p. 364) is mentioned a Terrella contrived by Sir Christopher Wren, with one half immersed in the centre of a plane horizontal table, so as to be like a Globe with the poles in the horizon, having thirty-two magnet needles mounted in the margin of the table to show "the different respect of the Needle to the several Points of the Loadstone."

In Sir John Pettus's Fleta Minor, London, 1683, in the Dictionary of Metallick Words at the end, under the word Loadstone occurs the following passage:

"Another piece of Curiosity I saw in the Hands of Sir William Persal (since Deceased also) viz., a Terrella or Load-stone, of little more than 6 Inches Diameter, turned into a Globular Form, and all the Imaginery Lines of our Terrestrial Globe, exactly drawn upon it: viz. the Artick and Antartick Circles, the two Tropicks, the two Colures, the Zodiack and Meridian; and these Lines, and the several Countryes, artificially Painted on it, and all of them with their true Distances, from the two Polar Points, and to find the truth of those Points, he took two little pieces of a Needle, each of about half an Inch in length, and those he laid on the Meridian line, and then with Brass Compasses, moved one of them towards the Artick, which as it was moved, still raised it self at one end higher and higher, keeping the other end fixt to the Terrella; and when it had compleated it Journy to the very Artick Points, it stood upright upon that Point; then he moved the other piece of Needle to the Antartick Point, which had its Elevations like the other, and when it came to the Point, it fixt it self upon that Point, and stood upright, and then taking the Terrella in my Hand, I could perfectly see that the two pieces of Needles stood so exactly one against the other, as if it had been one intire long Needle put through the Terrella, which made me give credit to those who held, That there is an Astral Influence that darts it self through the Globe of Earth from North to South (and is as the Axel-Tree to the Wheel, and so called the Axis of the World) about which the Globe of the Earth is turned, by an Astral Power, so as what I thought imaginary, by this Demonstration, I found real."

[63] Page 13, line 20. Page 13, line 22. The editions of 1628 and 1633 give a different woodcut from this: they show the terrella lined with meridians, equator, and parallels of latitude: and they give the compass needle, at the top, pointing in the wrong direction.

[64] Page 14, line 3. Page 14, line 3. The Berlin "facsimile" reprint omits the asterisk here.

[65] Page 14, line 5. Page 14, line 6. erectus altered in ink in the folio to erecta. But erectus is preserved in editions 1628 and 1633. In Cap. IIII., on p. 14, both these Stettin editions insert an additional cut representing the terrella A placed in a tub or vessel B floating on water.

[66] Page 14, line 34. Page 14, line 39. variatione quadā. The whole of Book IIII. is devoted to a discussion of the variation of the compass.

[67] Page 16, line 28. Page 16, line 34. aquæ.—This curious use of the dative occurs also on p. 222, line 8.

[68] Page 17, line 1. Page 17, line 1. videbis.—The reading vibebis of the 1633 edition is an error.

[69] Page 18, line 24. Page 18, line 27. Theamedem.—For the myth about the alleged Theamedes, or repelling magnet, see Cardan, De Subtilitate (folio ed., 1550, lib. vii., p. 186).

Pliny's account, in the English version of 1601 (p. 587), runs:

"To conclude, there is another mountaine in the same Æthyopia, and not farre from the said Zimiris, which breedeth the stone Theamedes that will abide no yron, but rejecteth and driveth the same from it."

Martin Cortes, in his Arte de Nauegar (Seville, 1556), wrote:

"And true it is that Tanxeades writeth, that in Ethiope is found another kinde of this stone, that putteth yron from it" (Eden's translation, London, 1609).

[70] Page 21, line 24. Page 21, line 25. Hic segetes, &c.—The English version of these lines from Vergil's Georgics, Book I., is by the late Mr. R. D. Blackmore.

[71] Page 22, line 18. Page 22, line 19. quale, altered in ink in the folio text to qualis. The editions of 1628 and 1633 both read qualis.

[72] Page 22, line 19. Page 22, line 20. rubrica fabrili: in English ruddle or reddle. See "Sir" John Hill, A General Natural History, 1748, p. 47. In the De Re Metallica of Entzelt (Encelius), Frankfurt, 1551, p. 134, is a paragraph headed De Rubrica Fabrili, as follows: "Rubrica fabrilis duplex est. à Germanis añt utraque dicitur rottel, röttelstein, wie die zimmerleüt vnd steynmetzen brauchen. à Græcis μίλτος τεκτονική. Est enim alia nativa, alia factitia. Natiua à Germanis propriè dicitur berckrottel. haec apud nos est fossilis.... Porro factitia est rubrica fabrilis, à Germanis braunrottel, quæ fit ex ochra usta, ut Theophrastus et Dioscorides testantur."

[73] Page 22, line 19. Page 22, line 20. In Sussexia Angliæ.—In Camden's Britannia (1580) we read concerning the iron industry in the villages in Sussex: "They are full of iron mines in sundry places, where, for the making and founding thereof, there be furnaces on every side; and a huge deal of wood is yearly burnt. The heavy forge-hammers, worked by water-power, stored in hammer-ponds, ceaselessly beating upon the iron, fill the neighbourhood round about, day and night, with continual noise."

[74] Page 23, line 1. Page 22, line 44. in libro Aristotelis de admirandis narrationibus.—The reference is to the work usually known as the De Mirabilibus Auscultationibus, Cap. XLVIII.: "Fertur autem peculiarissima generatio esse ferri Chalybici Amisenique, ut quod ex sabulo quod a fluviis defertur, ut perhibent certe, conflatur. Alii simpliciter lotum in fornace excoqui, alii vero, quod ex lotura subsedit, frequentius lotum comburi tradunt adjecto simul et pyrimacho dicto lapide, qui in ista regio plurimus reperiri fertur." (Ed. Didot, vol. ii., p. 87.) According to Georgius Agricola, the stone pyrimachus is simply iron pyrites.

[75] Page 23, line 22. Page 23, line 23. vt in Italia Comi, &c.—This is mostly taken from Pliny. Compare the following passage from Philemon Holland's translation (1601), p. 514:

"But the most varietie of yron commeth by the meanes of the water, wherein the yron red-hot is eftsoones dipped and quenched for to be hardened. And verely, water only which in some place is better, in other worse, is that which hath ennobled many places for the excellent yron that commeth from them, as namely, Bilbilis in Spaine, and Tarassio, Comus also in Italie; for none of these places have any yron mines of their owne, and yet there is no talke but of the yron and steele that commeth from thence."

Bilbilis is Bambola, and Tariassona the Tarazona of modern Spain.

[76] Page 24, line 28. Page 24, line 27. Quare vani sunt illi Chemici.—Gilbert had no faith in the alchemists. On pp. 19 and 21 he had poked fun at them for declaring the metals to be constituted of sulphur and quicksilver, and for pronouncing the fixed earth in iron to be sulphur. On p. 20 he had denied their proposition that the differences between silver, gold, and copper could arise from proportions of their constituent materials; and he likewise denounced unsparingly the supposed relation between the seven metals and the seven planets. He now denounces the vain dreams of turning all metals into gold, and all stones into diamonds. Later he rejects as absurd the magnetic curing of wounds. His detachment from the pseudo-science of his age was unique if not complete.

[77] Page 25, line 15. Page 25, line 16. Petro-coriis, & Cabis Biturgibus.—The Petro-corii were a tribe in the neighbourhood of Perigord; the Cubi Biturges another in that of Bourges.

[78] Page 25, line 21. Page 25, line 23. Pliny's account, as translated by P. Holland (ed. 1601, p. 515), runs thus:

"Of all mines that be, the veine of this mettall is largest, and spreadeth it selfe into most lengths every way: as we may see in that part of Biscay that coasteth along the sea, and upon which the Ocean beateth: where there is a craggie mountaine very steep and high, which standeth all upon a mine or veine of yron. A wonderfull thing, and in manner incredible, howbeit, most true, according as I have shewed already in my Cosmographie, as touching the circuit of the Ocean."

[79] Page 26, Line 15. Page 26, line 12. quas Clampas nostri vocant.—The name clamp for the natural kiln formed by heaping up the bricks, with ventilating spaces and fuel within the heap, is still current.

[80] Page 26, line 39. Page 26, line 38. Pluebat in Taurinis ferrum.—The occurrence is narrated by Scaliger, De Subtilitate, Exercitat. cccxxiii.:

"Sed falsò lapidis pluviam creas tu ex pulvere hausto à nubibus, atque in lapidem condensato. At ferrum, quod pluit in Taurinis, cuius frustum apud nos extat, qua ex fodina sustulit nubes? Tribus circiter annis antè, quàm ab Rege provincia illa recepta esset, pluit ferro multis in locis, sed raris" (p. 434, Editio Lutetiæ, 1557).

"During the latter ages of the Roman Empire the city of Augusta Taurinorum seems to have been commonly known (as was the case in many instances in Transalpine Gaul) by the name of the tribe to which it belonged, and is called simply Taurini in the Itineraries, as well as by other writers, hence its modern name of Torino or Turin" (Smith's Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geographies, p. 1113).

There exists a considerable literature respecting falls of meteors and of meteoric iron. Livy, Plutarch, and Pliny all record examples. See also Remarks concerning stones said to have fallen from the clouds, by Edward King (London, 1796); Chladni, Ueber den Ursprung der von Pallas gefundenen und anderer ihr ähnlicher Eisenmassen (Riga, 1794); Philosophical Transactions, vol. lxxviii., pp. 37 and 183; vol. lxxxv., p. 103; vol. xcii., p. 174; Humboldt's Cosmos, vol. i. (p. 97 of London edition, 1860); C. Rammelsberg, Die chemische Natur der Meteoriten (Berlin, 1879); Maskelyne, Some lecture-notes on Meteorites printed in Nature, vol. xii., pp. 485, 504, and 520, 1875. Maskelyne denominates as siderites those meteorites which consist chiefly of iron. They usually contain from 80 to 95 per cent. of iron, often alloyed with nickel. This meteoric iron is sometimes so pure that it can at once be forged by the smith. An admirable summary of the whole subject is to be found in L. Fletcher's An Introduction to the study of Meteorites, publisht by the British Museum (Nat. Hist.), London, 1896.

[81] Page 27, line 3. Page 26, line 41. vt Cardanus ... scribit.—The passage runs:

"Vidimus anno MDX cum cecidisset è cœlo lapides circiter MCC in agrum fluvio Abduæ conterminum, ex his unum CXX pondo, alium sexaginta delati fuerunt ad reges Gallorũ satrapes, plurimi: colos ferrugineus, durities eximia, odor sulphureus" (Cardan, De Rerum Varietate, lib. xiiii., cap. lxxii.; Basil., 1557, p. 545).

[82] Page 27, line 9. Page 27, line 2. aut stannum, aut plumbum album. Although most authorities agree in translating plumbum album or plumbum candidum as "tin" (which is unquestionably the meaning in such examples as Pliny's Nat. Hist., xxxiv. 347, and iv. 16; or Strabo, iii. 147), nevertheless it is certain that here plumbum album is not given as a synonym of stannum and therefore is not tin. That Gilbert meant either spelter or pewter is pretty certain. He based his metallic terms mainly upon Encelius (Christoph Entzelt) whose De Re Metallica was published at Frankfurt in 1551. From this work are taken the following passages:

p. 61. De Plumbo candido. Cap. XXXI.

"Veluti plumbum nigrũ uocatur à Germanis blei simpliciter, od' schwartzblei: ita plumbũ candidũ ab his uocatur weissblei, od' ziñ. Impropriè autem plumbum hoc nostrum candidum ziñ, stannum dicitur. Et non sunt idem, ut hactenus voluerunt, stannum et plumbum candidum, unser ziñ. Aliud est stannum, de quo mox agemus: et aliud plumbum candidum nostrum, unser ziñ, quod nigro plumbo quasi est quiddã purius et perfectius...."

p. 62. De Stanno. Cap. XXXII.

"In præcedenti capite indicauimus aliud esse stannum, aliud esse plumbũ candidũ. Illa ergo definitio plumbi candidi, dess zinnes, etiã apud chimistas nõ de stanno, sed de plumbo candido (ut mihi uidetur) intelligenda est, cum dicunt: Stannum (es soll heyssen plumbum candidum) est metallicum album, non purum, lividum...."

p. 63. "Sic uides stannum, secundum Serapionem, metallicum esse quod reperitur in sua propria uena, ut forsitan apud nos bisemutũ: ecõtra nostrũ candidũ plumbũ, est Plinij candidũ plumbũ, das zin, quod cõflatur ut plumbum nigrum, ex pyrite, galena, et lapillis nigris. Deinde uides stannum Plinio esse quiddã de plumbo nigro, nempe primum fluorem plumbi nigri, als wann man vnser bley ertz schmeltzet, das erst das do fleüsset, zwäre Plinio stannum. Et hoc docet Plinius adulterari plũbo candido, mit vnserm zinn, vnd wann du ihm recht nachdenckest, daruon die kannen gemacht werden, das man halbwerck heist.... O ir losen vngelerten, vnckenbrenner. Stannum proculdubio Arabis metallum est preciosius nostro candido plumbo: sicuti apud nos bisemuthum quiddam plumbo preciosius."