stronger. But when the iron is separated from contact with it, then it becomes much weaker, especially in the end that was not touched. Just as a long rod, one end of which is placed in the fire and heated, grows exceedingly hot at that end, less so in the parts adjoining and in the middle, whilst at the other end it can be held in the hand, and that end is only warm; so the magnetical vigour diminishes from the excited end to the other end; but it is present there instantly, and does not enter after an interval of time nor successively, as the heat in the iron; for as soon as a piece of iron has been touched by a loadstone it is excited throughout its whole length. For the sake of experiment, let there be a rod of iron 4 or * 5 digits long, untouched by a loadstone; as soon as you touch one end only with a loadstone, the opposite end immediately, or in the twinkling of an eye, by the power that it has conceived, repels or attracts a versorium, if it be applied to it ever so quickly.
CHAP. IIII.
Why Iron touched by a Loadstone acquires an opposite
verticity, and why iron touched by the true Northern side of a stone
turns to the North of the earth, by the true Southern side
to the South; and does not turn to the South when rubbed
by the Northern point of the stone, and when by
the Southern to the North, as all who have
written on the loadstone have
falsely supposed.
emonstration has already been given that the northern part of a loadstone does not attract the northern part of another stone, but the southern, and repels the northern part of another stone from its northern side when it is applied to it. That general magnet, the terrestrial globe, disposes iron touched by a loadstone in the same way, and likewise magnetick iron stirs this same iron by its implanted strength, and excites motion and controls it. For whether the comparison and experiment has been made between loadstone and loadstone, or loadstone and iron, or iron and iron, or the earth and loadstone, or the earth and iron conformed * by the earth or strengthened by the power of a loadstone, the strength and inclinations of each must mutually harmonize and accord in the same way. But the reason must be sought, why a piece of iron when touched by a loadstone acquires a disposition to motion toward the opposite pole of the earth, and not toward that pole
