65 



discernable result of them on earth." He remarked 

 also that the waters, which are naturally inert, do not 

 swell up immediately upon the conjunction of the 

 sun and moon ; but having gradually admitted the im- 

 pulse, and begun t raise themselves, continue in tkat 

 elevation, even after the conjunction is over. 



11. There are few things which have move engaged 

 the attention of naturalists, and with less success, than 

 the wonderful properties of the Loadstone. At all 

 times men have hazarded a variety of conjectures, to 

 account for the curious effects of it. Almost all have 

 agreed in assigning this as a principal reason, that 

 there are corpuscles of a peculiar form and energy, 

 that continually circulate around and through the loud* 

 stone, and a vortex of the same matter, circulating 

 around and through the earth. Upon these supposi- 

 tions, the modern philosophers have advanced, that 

 the loadstone hath two poles, similar to those of the 

 earth ; and that the magnetic matter which issues at 

 one of the poles, and circulates around to enter at 

 the other, occasions that impulse which brings iron 

 to the loadstone, whose small corpuscles have an ana. 

 logy to the pores of iron, fitting them to lay hold of 

 it, but not of other bodies. This is almost all that 

 hath been reasonably advanced with respect to the 

 virtue of the magnet, and all this the ancients had said 

 before. 



12. This impulsive forte, which joins iron to tha * 

 loadstone, and other things to amber, was known to 

 Plato ; though he would not call it attraction, as aU 

 lowing no such cause in nature. This philosopher 

 called the magnet, the stone of Hercules, because it 

 subdued iron, which conquers every thing. Lucre, 

 tius also knew what caused this property in the 

 loadstone, and without doubt furnished Descartes with 

 his explanation. He admitted that there was a " vor- 

 tex of corpuscles, or magnetic matter, which continu. 

 ally circulating around the loadstone, repelling the in. 



