CONTENTS. 



PAGE 



Introduction n 



CHAPTER I. 



Ancient sources of amber 15 



Amber legends 16 



The Syrian women and their amber spindles 17 



The lodestone 19 



Lodestone legends 22 



Greek knowledge of the lodestone and the Samothracian rings. . . 23 



The Magnetes 26 



Egyptian knowledge of the lodestone 28 



Magnetic knowledge of the Hebrews 29 



CHAPTER II. 



The opening of the Egyptian ports 30 



Greek Nature-worship . 31 



Thales of Miletus and the beginning of Greek philosophy 32 



The Magnet-soul 33 



Diogenes Laertius on Thales 34 



Aristotle and the foreshadowing of the inductive method 38 



Theophrastus, and the first physical description of the amber effect . 39 



The mythical Lyncurium 41 



The University of Alexandria 44 



Legends of magnetic suspension Mahomet's coffin 45 



Lucretius' De Natura Rerum and its description of magnetic effects . 47 



Ancient medical uses of amber 52 



CHAPTER III. 



The polarity of the magnet , , . , . 53 



Unknown to ancient Greeks 54 



Or to ancient Phoenician navigators 55 



The Betulae 56 



No knowledge of polarity among ancient Egyptians 57 



Or among the Etruscans 59 



Polarity possibly known to the prehistoric Nomad races 61 



Relations of Akkadians and Chinese 63 



Ancient China and Chinese chronology 64 



The Chinese south-pointing carts 67 



(vi) 



