( 2?6 ) 
Ounce of Iron, although thefe Needles were anointed 
with Linfeed Oil, which made a hard Coat, to keep 
them from rufting, yet they kept the Vertue ; but in 
Strengthning thefe Sort of Needles, I rubbed by turns 
firft to the right and then to the left Side. 
The fame Way I brought the Vertue into the Point 
of a Knife, fo that it would fuftain i \ Ounce. 
I brought the faid Vertue into four fmall Pieces of 
Steel, each i Inch long and A Inch broad, as thin as the 
Spring of a Watch. Thefe four Pieces I joined together, 
as into an artificial Loadllone, weighing them 1 8 Grains 
Troy, and then it did draw up and fuftain an Iron Nail, 
which weighed 144 Grains Troy: This artificial Load- 
ftone has now thefe fix Years been tumbled about, and 
been lying among Iron and Steel, and in any Pofition, 
and yet it has rather got more than loft any of its Vertue. 
The magnetical Vertue being thus brought into Iron 
or Steel, I have farther obferved, that that End where 
the Stroke was begun, would draw to the North, and 
where the Stroke ended to the South, in whatever Si- 
tuation the Steel had been laid upon the Anvil to give it 
the Vertue. I took a Piece of Steel and rubbed it from 
one End to the Middle, and then from the other End 
to the Middle, and found it had two North Poles, one 
at each End, and the Middle a South Pole. 
Further, beginning to rub from the Middle towards 
each End of another Piece of Steel, I found it to have at 
each End a South Pole, and in the Middle a North Pole. 
I have put a pretty heavy Compafs-Needle after I had 
given it its Vertue, into the Fire, and made red hot three 
times one after another, letting it grow cold every time: 
It loft feme Vertue every Hear, but at the third it had 
a great deal ftill left, and making it for the fourth time 
white hot, it loft it all. 
When 
