Magnetick Force causes motion towards unity, and binds firmly together bodies which are united

Magnetick fragments cohære within their strength well and harmoniously together. Pieces of iron in the presence of a loadstone (even if they are not *touching the loadstone) run together, seek one another anxiously and embrace one another, and when joined are as if they were cemented. Iron *filings or the same reduced to powder inserted in paper tubes, placed upon a stone meridionally or merely brought rather close to it, coalesce into one body, and so many parts suddenly are concreted *and combine;

The whole company of corpuscles thus conspiring together affects another piece of iron and attracts it, as if it constituted one integral rod of iron; and above the stone it is directed toward the North and South.

But when they are removed a long *{91}way from the stone, the particles (as if loosed again) are separated and move apart singly. In this way also the foundations of the world are connected and joined and cemented together magnetically. So let Ptolemy of Alexandria, and his followers, and those philosophers of ours, be the less terrified if the earth do move round in a circle, nor threaten its dissolution.

Iron filings, after being heated for a long time, are attracted by a loadstone, yet not so strongly or from so great a distance as when not heated. A loadstone loses some of its virtue by too great a heat; for its humour is set free, whence its peculiar nature is marred. Likewise also, if iron filings are well burnt in a reverberatory furnace and converted into saffron of Mars, they are not attracted by a loadstone; but if they are heated, but not thoroughly burnt, they do stick to a magnet, but less strongly than the filings themselves not acted upon by fire. For the saffron has become totally deformate, but the heated metal acquires a defect from the fire, and the forces in the enfeebled body are less excited by a loadstone; and, the nature of the iron being now ruined, it is not attracted by a loadstone.

CHAP. 24. A piece of Iron placed within the Orbe of a Loadstone hangs suspended in the air, if on account of some impediment it cannot approach it.

Within the magnetick orbe a piece of iron moves towards the more powerful points of the stone, if it be not hindered by force or by the material of a body placed between them; either it falls down from above, or tends sideways or obliquely, or flies up above. But if the iron cannot reach the stone on account of some obstacle, it cleaves to it and remains there, but with a less firm and constant connection, since at greater intervals or distances the alliance is less amicable.

Fracastorio, in the eighth chapter of his De Sympathia, says that a piece of iron is suspended in the air, so that it can be moved neither up nor down, if a loadstone be placed above which is able to draw the iron up just as much as the iron itself inclines downwards with equal force; for thus the iron would be supported in the air: which thing is absurd; because the force of a magnet is {92}always the stronger the nearer it is.

So that when a piece of iron is raised a very little from the earth by the force of the magnet, it needs must be drawn steadily on towards the magnet (if nothing else come in the way) and cleave to it.

Baptista Porta suspends a piece of iron in the air[178] (a magnet being fixed above), and, by no very subtile process, the iron is detained by a slender thread from its lower part, so that it cannot rise up to the stone.

The iron is raised upright by the magnet, although the magnet does not *touch the iron, but because it is in its vicinity; but when the whole iron on account of its greater nearness is moved by that which erected it, immediately it hurries with a swift motion to the magnet and cleaves to it. For by approaching the iron is more and more excited, and the coition grows stronger.