ANCIENT MAGNETIC KNOWLEDGE. 29 



made and used by the Hebrews during their servitude, and 

 that when they left the country they carried their knowl- 

 edge with them. That they were familiar with the metal, 

 at the period of Moses, and hence at about 1,500 years B. 

 C., and possibly had known of it then for a long time, is 

 shown by the mention of Tubal Cain, 1 u an instructor of 

 every artificer in brass and iron," as a personage of great 

 antiquity, at the very beginning of the Pentateuch. Their 

 continuing knowledge of it, over many centuries, is further 

 shown by the biblical references to the bed of iron of Og, 

 the iron chariots of Javin, the miraculous floating ax-head 

 of Elisha, the question "shall iron break the northern iron 

 and the steel" in the Jeremiad, and many other instances, 

 easily found. There are Jewish writers, moreover, who 

 assert that not only were the Hebrews thus fully ac- 

 quainted with iron, but that they were equally well aware 

 of the magnet and its attractive force. The famous Rabbi 

 Mosheh ben Maimon (Maimonides), 2 who wrote at the end 

 of the twelfth century, mentions not only an image of the 

 sun, in the Babylonian Temple of Beltis, as maintained in 

 suspension in the air by means of magnets, but avers that 

 Jeroboam suspended the golden calves, which he com- 

 manded Israel to worship, in the same way. 3 No proof, 

 however, seems to support this tradition, which, if true, 

 would show the Hebrew acquaintance with the magnet to 

 have existed at about 950 B. C. Kircher * quotes Rabbi 

 Isaac Abaxbanel, who wrote late in the i5th century, as 

 authority for the statement that the Israelites knew of the 

 magnet while wandering in the wilderness, and even used 

 it in the construction of the tabernacle ; but this again is 

 yet more vague and doubtful than the ascription to Jero- 

 boam. 



1 Genesis, iv. 32. 



2 Moreh Nebukhim (Guide to the Perplexed). Talmud, Tract, Sene- 

 drin, c. 3 : Gemarah, c. Aegel. 



3 1 Kings, xii. 28. 



4 Kircher: De Arte Magnetica. Rome, 1654. 



