A I' I- 1. \ IH \. 



magnea or loadstone, from tlic plain of the in.i. 



latitudes, I demand whether tin- load-lour, 

 place and ininr in the earth, hath not tin- two point 

 south directly respecting tin- north and south pi.lt - t.i the Uth, If 

 so, thru, whethw A Straight steel wire, \\u\\-j; l>y tin- mid> 

 small thread in equal balance, and touched on either end wit 

 north or south point of the stone, will not likewi-e direct! 

 the north and south pqjcs. I say, touched hard with the very nd 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 cud of tin- 

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

 due. 



Secondly, Considering the variation of the magnetiral needle from 

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

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

 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 of force) respecting those points of the earth \vhereunto 

 it hath like situation. So that, for example, to 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 equinoctial meet with and 

 and cut each other. I say still, the same horizon : becnu.-e loadstones 

 of divers countries must consequently have arid 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 ivqui- 

 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 Haptista Porta his book dc 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 hi> 

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

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

 loadstone besides the poles, would respect the polos 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 mnch the weaklier by 



