Note 7 — AND HIS PREDECESSORS

Hellmann, ibid., Robert Norman, The newe attractive, containyng a short discourse of the magnes or lodestone, and amongest other his vertues, of a newe discovered secret and subtill propertie, concernyng the declinyng of the needle, touched therewith under the plaine of the horizon. Now first founde out by Robert Norman Hydrographer. London, 1581. The possibility is present that Norman's work was a direct stimulus to Gilbert, for Wright's introduction to De magnete stated that Gilbert started his study of magnetism the year following the publication of Norman's book.