VOL. XXXVI.] VHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 405 



Mr. S. endeavoured to procure magnetism in steel, without the assistance of 

 any magnet, except the earth's central one. 



Finding that his artificial magnets, rightly used, would communicate more 

 virtue to other steel, than they themselves had ; and observing that erect bars 

 had some virtue from the earth's magnet ; and having also experienced that 

 iron, which had only transient virtue, would, when in an erect position, or in 

 the magnetical line, give a small degree of fixed polarity ; he ordered Q steel 

 bars, A of an inch square, and l6 inches long, to be made. Some of them, 

 through the smith's fault, were a little less ; the weight of the heaviest was, 

 after it was finished, 3 lb. avoirdupois. He made them moderately bright by 

 grinding, and filed their ends plain, and transverse to their lengths, by help of 

 a carpenter's square ; then marked one end of then), and, when hardened, 

 scoured them bright, and polished their ends very well. He fitted a piece of 

 armour for each end of one bar, and marked the piece which was for the marked 

 end of the bar, and bound fast both pieces of armour to the same bar, one at 

 each end : then standing with his face toward the west, and holding the palm 

 of his left hand upward, he placed in it one of the bars without armour, with 

 its marked end northward, and grasped it fast at its middle, with his fingers on 

 the west side, and the ball of his thumb on the east side, where he also laid 

 along his whole thumb to keep it steady : so that the upper part of the bar was 

 open from end to end. Thus holding it, he elevated the south end till he 

 guessed it was in the magnetical line; and holding with his right hand the 

 armed bar, with the poles of the armour downward, and the marked end to- 

 ward the north depressed to the magnetical line, he placed the pole of the 

 upper armour about 4 or 5 inches from the top of the unarmed bar, and as soon 

 as it touched the bar, he began to draw it downward till past the middle, and 

 from thence to the bottom gradually slower. When at the bottom, he per- 

 mitted it to rest there about 1 or 2 seconds. After the same manner, applying 

 the pole of the lower armour to the unarmed bar, about 4 or 5 inches from its 

 bottom, he drew it upward, speedily at first, slower when above the middle, 

 letting it rest a little at the top. Having upwards and downwards alternately re- 

 peated the touch on the same side of the bar, he touched the opposite side, 

 next his hand, in the same manner, and afterwards the two other sides. Then 

 holding the unarmed bar erect, he used to see if it had gained any fixed polarity, 

 by holding a small needle at the top and at the bottom of the bar ; for if it had 

 gained any virtue by the touch, it would attract the needle stronger, at the 

 same distance, when the marked end of the bar was held downward, than when 

 it was held upward. If he found it had gained any sensible virtue, he took off 

 the armour om the first bar, and bound it to the second which he had touched. 



