THE MAGNETIC RESEARCHES OF GALILEO. 347 



to suggest that a friend of his (Sagredo) possessed a lode- 

 stone far more worthy of the notice of his Serene Highness, 

 and which weighed fully five pounds, but for which the 

 large sum of four hundred crowns was demanded. 



The curious spectacle then followed of the Sovereign of 

 Tuscany and the great philosopher keenly haggling for sev- 

 eral months over the purchase price, until finally the duke's 

 offer of a considerably reduced amount was accepted. Gal- 

 ileo then became uneasy lest the stone should not accom- 

 plish what he had stated that it would do, namely, lift its 

 own weight, and thereupon he caused the magnet to be 

 sent to him by Sagredo, in order that he might satisfy 

 himself by experiment as to its efficiency. What he did 

 with it he recounts in his letter of transmission. He fitted 

 up the stone at his own expense with armatures, which he 

 makes in the form of two little anchors (suggestive, as he 

 says, of the fabulous notion that a magnet might lift a 

 ship's anchor), for purposes of conveniencej inasmuch as 

 when the stock of the anchor is applied to the magnet pole 

 other pieces of iron can be applied to the hook, up to the 

 extreme limit of the strength of the magnet. 



It is exceedingly interesting to note how carefully and 

 ingeniously he proceeds to provide for the requirements 

 of future experimentation. "I have not made the anchors 

 of the great weight," he says, u which I have seen the 

 stone to be able to sustain; first, in order to be sure that, 

 without tedious trial, the irons suddenly presented to the 

 poles of the stone would attach themselves, and, second, 

 because I think that the same piece will not be sustained 

 with the same force in all places of the earth. " He 

 thought that the magnet poles would be governed some- 

 what in attractive power by the proximity of the earth's 

 poles, so that, in this way, "the stronger pole of the stone 

 should sustain something more at Padua than at Florence 

 or Pisa." Therefore, he is anxious to have this question 

 tested, and to that end, while he makes the anchor arma- 

 tures themselves of a weight not as great as that which the 



