APPENDIX. 123 



magnes or loadstone, from the plain of the horizon, for shewing of 

 latitudes, I demand whether the loadstone, as it lyeth in its natural 

 place and mine in the earth, hath not the two points of north and 

 south directly respecting the north and south poles of the earth. If 

 so, then, whether a straight steel wire, hung by the middles with a 

 small thread in equal balance, and touched on either end with the 

 north or south point of the stone, will not likewise directly respect 

 the north and south poles. I say, touched hard with the very end of 

 the wire : not as the usual manner is, drawn or pressed with the north 

 or south end of the stone, along from the middle to the end of the 

 wire : which, as it may seem, makes the needle decline more than 

 due. 



Secondly, Considering the variation of the magnetical needle from 

 the plain of the meridian for shewing of longitudes, I demand whether 

 the same magnes or loadstone, lying in his natural place and mine 

 in the earth, hath not as those two principal points directly respect- 

 ing the north and south poles of the earth, so also every other two 

 opposite points of itself in the like natural force (although not in the 

 same degree offeree) respecting those points of the earth whereunto 

 it hath like situation. So that, for example, 19 speak only of three 

 other being the chiefest, a wire touched in manner aforesaid, with the 

 vertical or opposite, that is to say, uppermost or nethermost point of 

 the stone lying in or newly taken out of his mine, by his free motion, 

 will, in the same horizon, turn that end directly up or down-right, 

 and take wholly to itself the situation and place of so much of the 

 axis of that horizon : and, moreover, there being a line drawn round 

 about the stone, sequidistant from his poles of north and south, a wire 

 touched in that point thereof that in the stone's natural situation re- 

 specteth the east or west, will likewise turn itself and lie level in the 

 plain of the same horizon directly east and west : and finally, a wire 

 likewise touched at a quarter of the said circle's distance, will duly 

 assume to itself that situation and place where the plains of the 

 meridian of the same horizon and sequinoctial meet with and cross 

 and cut each other. I say still, the same horizon : because loadstones 

 of divers countries must consequently have and shew divers horizons 

 and meridians with points correspondent ; there being no natural 

 horizon or meridian, or east and west, in the world, as there is sequi- 

 noctial, and north and south. 



This have I conceived in my mind many years since, upon com- 

 paring of our countryman Norman his New Attractive, concerning 

 the declination of the magnetical needle by himself first observed, 

 and variation of the same, with Baptista Porta his book de mirabili- 

 bus magnetis ; but hitherto partly I have not had fit opportunity to 

 make trial thereof, and partly I have neglected it, by reason I 

 found it flatly contradicted by D. Gilbert in divers places of his books 

 de magnete, and also by some of my learned friends ; who, being 

 asked by me, whether a needle touched in any other place of the 

 loadstone besides the poles, would respect the poles in like manner 

 as if it were touched in either pole, answered that it would in like 

 manner, tho' not in like force, but by so much the weaklier by 



