Treat! fi ^/BODIES. Chap. 2 



W: <v toucheth an iron there arc more parts which touch one another, 

 former the ii when a loadftone touchcch the iron: both beeaufe the load- 



cffc&s refuted. ftone hath generally much impurity in it, and therefore divers 

 pares of it have no virtue ; whereas iron, by being melted hath 

 ?H ks parts pure: and fccondly, beeaufe iron canbefmoothed 

 and polifhed mote then a loadftone can be : and therefore its fu- 

 perficies toucheth in a manner with all its parts ; whereas di- 

 vers parts of tbeftones fuperficics cannot touch, by reafon of its 

 rugged nefle. 



And he confirrneth his opinion by experience : for if you put 

 the head o^~ a needle to a bare ftone, and the point of it to an 

 iron; and then pluck away the iron;the needle will leave the iron 

 and ftick to the ftonc:but if you turn the needle the other way, it 

 will leave the ftone and ftick to the iron. Out of which he infer- 

 reth that it is the multitude of parts, which caufcth the clofc and 

 ftrong flicking. And it leemeth he found the fame in the capping 

 of his loadftcnes:for he uled flat irons for that purpole; which by 

 their whole plane did take up other irons: whereas Gilbert cap- 

 ped his with convex honsj which not applying themfelves to o- 

 ther iron, fb ftrongly or with fb many parts as Galileo's did, 

 would not by much take up fb great weights as his. 



Neverthelcfle, it feemeth not to me that his anfwer is fuflfici- 

 ent, or that his realbns convince ; for we are to confider that the 

 virtue w ch he puttethin the iron muft(according tc his own fup- 

 po/ition) proceed from the loadftone: and then, what importcth 

 it, whether the fuperficics of the iron which toucheth another 

 iron, be fb exaclly plain or no ? Or thatthe parts of it be more 

 folid then the parts of the ftone? For all this conduceth nothing 

 to make the virtue greater then it was : fincenomore virtue 

 can go from onei'ron totheother : then gocth from thcloadftone 

 to the firft iron :nnd if this virtue cannot tie the firft iron to the, 

 loadftone, it cannot proceed out of this virtue that the fecond 

 iron be tied to the firft. Again, if a paper be put betwixt the cap 

 and another iron.-it doth not hinder the magneticall -virtue from 

 patting through it to the iron ; but the virtue of taking up more 

 weight then the naked ftone was able to do, is thereby rendered 

 quite ufeleflc. Therefore it is evident, that this virtue muft 

 be put in fbmething clfe 3 and not in the application of the mag- 

 aeticall virtue.. 



