The Magnetick Coition, and first on the Attraction of Amber, or the Attaching of Bodies to Amber.

Celebrated has the fame of the loadstone and of amber ever been in the memoirs of the learned. Loadstone and also amber do some philosophers invoke when in explaining many secrets their senses become dim and reasoning cannot go further.

Inquisitive theologians also would throw light on the divine mysteries set beyond the range of human sense, by means of loadstone and amber; just as idle Metaphysicians, when they are setting up and teaching useless phantasms, have recourse to the loadstone as if it were a Delphick sword, an illustration always applicable to everything.

But physicians even (with the authority of {47}Galen), desiring to confirm the belief in the attraction of purgative medicines by means of the likeness of substance and the familiarities of the juices—truly a vain and useless error—bring in the loadstone as witness as being a nature of great authority and of conspicuous efficacy and a remarkable body.

So in very many cases there are some who, when they are pleading a cause and cannot give a reason for it, bring in loadstone and amber as though they were personified witnesses.

But these men (apart from that common error) being ignorant that the causes of magnetical motions are widely different from the forces of amber, easily fall into error, and are themselves the more deceived by their own cogitations.

For in other bodies a conspicuous force of attraction manifests itself otherwise than in loadstone; like as in amber, concerning which some things must first be said, that it may appear what is that attaching of bodies, and how it is different from and foreign to the magnetical actions; those mortals being still ignorant, who think that inclination to be an attraction, and compare it with the magnetick coitions.

The Greeks call it ἤλεκτρον[108] because it attracts straws to itself, when it is warmed by rubbing; then it is called ἅρπαξ[109]; and χρυσοφόρον from its golden colour. But the Moors call it Carabe[110], because they are accustomed to offer the same in sacrifices and in the worship of the Gods. For Carab signifies to offer in Arabic; so Carabe, an offering: or seizing chaff, as Scaliger quotes from Abohalis, out of the Arabic or Persian language.

Some also call it Amber, especially the Indian and Ethiopian amber, called in Latin Succinum, as if it were a juice[111]. The Sudavienses or Sudini[112] call it geniter, as though it were generated terrestrially.

The errors of the ancients concerning its nature and origin having been exploded, it is certain that amber comes for the most part from the sea, and the rustics collect it on the coast after the more violent storms, with nets and other tackle; as among the Sudini of Prussia; and it is also found sometimes on the coast of our own Britain.

It seems, however, to be produced also in the soil and at spots of some depth, like other bitumens; to be washed out by the waves of the sea; and to become concreted more firmly from the nature and saltness of the sea-water. For it was at first a soft and viscous material; wherefore also it contains enclosed and entombed in pieces of it, shining in eternal sepulchres, flies, grubs, gnats, ants; which have all flown or crept or fallen into it when it first flowed forth in a liquid state[113]. The ancients and also more recent writers recall (experience proving the same thing), that amber attracts straws and chaff[114].

The same is also done by jet[115], which is dug out of the earth in Britain, in Germany, and in very many lands, and is a rather hard concretion from black bitumen, and as it were a transformation into stone.

There are many modern authors[116] who have written and copied from others about amber and jet[117] attracting chaff, and about other {48}substances generally unknown; with whose labours the shops of booksellers are crammed.

Our own age has produced many books about hidden, abstruse, and occult causes and wonders, in all of which amber and jet are set forth as enticing chaff; but they treat the subject in words alone, without finding any reasons or proofs from experiments, their very statements obscuring the thing in a greater fog, forsooth in a cryptic, marvellous, abstruse, secret, occult, way.

Wherefore also such philosophy produces no fruit, because very many philosophers, making no investigation themselves, unsupported by any practical experience, idle and inert, make no progress by their records, and do not see what light they can bring to their theories.

But their philosophy rests simply on the use of certain Greek words, or uncommon ones; after the manner of our gossips and barbers nowadays, who make show of certain Latin words to an ignorant populace as the insignia of their craft, and snatch at the popular favour.

For it is not only amber and *jet (as they suppose) which entice small bodies[118]; but Diamond, Sapphire, Carbuncle, Iris gem[119], Opal, Amethyst, Vincentina, and Bristolla (an English gem or spar)[120], Beryl, and Crystal[121] do the same.

Similar powers of attraction are seen also to be possessed by:

• glass
  • glass (especially when clear and lucid)
  • false gems made of glass or Crystal
  • glass of antimony, and
  • many kinds of spars from the mines, and by Belemnites.
• Sulphur
• mastick
• hard sealing-wax[122] compounded of lac tinctured of various colours.
• hard resin
• orpiment[123], but less strongly

Less attractive are:

• Rock salt
• muscovy stone
• rock alum.

These latter do it with difficulty also and indistinctly under a suitable dry sky[124],

This one may see when the air is sharp and clear and rare in mid-winter, when the emanations from the earth hinder electricks less. The electrick bodies become *more firmly indurated; about which hereafter.

These substances draw everything, not straws and chaff only[125], but all metals, woods, leaves, stones, earths, even water and oil, and everything which is subject to our senses, or is solid; although some write that amber does not attract anything but chaff and certain twigs;

(wherefore Alexander Aphrodiseus falsely declares the question of amber to be inexplicable, because it attracts dry chaff only, and not basil leaves[126]), but these are the utterly false and disgraceful tales of the writers.

But in order that you may be able clearly to test how such attraction occurs[127], and what those materials[128] are which thus entice other bodies (for even if bodies incline towards some of these, yet on account of weakness they seem not to be raised by them, but are more easily turned), make yourself a versorium of any metal you like, three or four digits in length, resting rather lightly on its point of support after the manner of a magnetick needle, to one end of which bring up a piece of amber or a smooth {49}Versorium and polished gem which has been gently rubbed; for the versorium turns forthwith.

Many things are thereby seen to attract, both those which are formed by nature alone, and those which are by art prepared, fused, and mixed; nor is this so much a singular property of one or two things (as is commonly supposed), but the manifest nature of very many, both of simple substances, remaining merely in their own form, and of compositions, as of hard sealing-wax, & of certain other mixtures besides, made of unctuous stuffs.

We must, however, investigate more fully whence that tendency arises, and what those forces be, concerning which a few men have brought forward very little, the crowd of philosophizers nothing at all. By Galen three kinds of attractives in general were recognized in nature:

1. a First class of those substances which attract by their elemental quality, namely, heat
2. the Second is the class of those which attract by the succession of a vacuum
3. the Third is the class of those which attract by a property of their whole substance, which are also quoted by Avicenna and others.

These classes, however, are not satisfactory.

They neither embrace the causes of amber, jet, and diamond, and of other similar substances (which derive their forces on account of the same virtue); nor of the loadstone, and of all magnetick substances, which obtain their virtue by a very dissimilar and alien influence from them, derived from other sources. Wherefore also it is fitting that we find other causes of the motions, or else we must wander (as in darkness), with these men, and in no way reach the goal.

Amber truly does* not allure by heat, since if warmed by fire and brought near straws, it does not attract them, whether it be tepid, or hot, or glowing, or even when forced into the flame.

Cardan (as also Pictorio) reckons that this happens in no different way[129] than with the cupping-glass, by the force of fire. Yet the attracting force of the cupping-glass does not really come from the force of fire.

But he had previously said that the dry substance wished to imbibe fatty humour, and therefore it was borne towards it. But these statements are at variance with one another, and also foreign to reason.

For if amber had moved towards its food, or if other bodies had inclined towards amber as towards provender, there would have been a diminution of the one which was devoured, just as there would have been a growth of the other which was sated. Then why should an attractive force of fire be looked for in amber?

If the attraction existed from heat, why should not very many other bodies also attract, if warmed by fire, by the sun, or by friction?

Neither can the attraction be on account of the dissipating of the air, when it takes place in open air (yet Lucretius the poet adduces this as the reason for magnetical motions).

Nor in the cupping-glass can heat or fire attract by feeding on air: in the cupping-glass air, having been exhausted into flame, {50}when it condenses again and is forced into a narrow space, makes the skin and flesh rise in avoiding a vacuum. In the open air warm things cannot attract, not metals even or stones, if they should *be strongly incandescent by fire. For a rod of glowing iron, or a flame, or a candle, or a blazing torch, or a live coal, when they are brought near to straws, or to a versorium, do not attract; yet at the same time they manifestly call in the air in succession; because they consume it, as lamps do oil. But concerning heat, how it is reckoned by the crowd of philosophizers, in natural philosophy and in materia medica to exert an attraction otherwise than nature allows, to which true attractions are falsely imputed, we will discuss more at length elsewhere, when we shall determine what are the properties of heat and cold. They are very general qualities or kinships of a substance, and yet are not to be assigned as true causes, and, if I may say so, those philosophizers utter some resounding words; but about the thing itself prove nothing in particular. Nor does this attraction accredited to amber arise from any singular quality of the substance or kinship, since by more thorough research we find the same effect in very many other bodies; and all bodies, moreover, of whatever quality, are allured by all those bodies. Similarity also is not the cause; because all things around us placed on this globe of the earth, similar and dissimilar, are allured by amber and bodies of this kind; and on that account no cogent analogy is to be drawn either from similarity or identity of substance.

But neither do similars mutually attract one another, as stone stone, flesh flesh, nor aught else outside the class of magneticks and electricks. Fracastorio would have it that “things which mutually attract one another are similars, as being of the same species, either in action or in right subjection.