That loadstone & iron ore are the same, but iron an
_extract from both, as other metals are from their own_
ores; & that all magnetick virtues, though
_weaker, exist in the ore itself & in
smelted iron._
Hitherto we have declared the nature & powers of the loadstone, & also the
properties & essence of iron; it now remains to show their mutual
affinities, & kinship, so to speak, & how very closely conjoined these
substances are. At the highest part of the terrestrial globe, or at its
perishable surface & rind, as it were, these two bodies usually originate &
are produced in one and the same matrix, as twins in one mine. Strong
loadstones are dug up by themselves, weaker ones too have their own proper
vein. Both are found in iron mines. Iron ore most often occurs alone,
without strong loadstone (for the more perfect are rarely met with). Strong
loadstone is a stone resembling iron; out of it is usually smelted the
finest iron, which the Greeks call _stomoma_, the Latins _acies_, the
Barbarians (not amiss) _aciare_, or _aciarium_. This same stone draws,
repels, controls other loadstones, directs itself to the poles of the
world, picks up smelted iron, and works many other wonders, some already
set forth by us, but many more which we must demonstrate more fully. A
weaker loadstone, however, will exhibit all these powers, but in a lesser
degree; while iron ore, & also wrought iron (if they have been prepared)
show their strength in all magnetick experiments not less than do feeble
and weak * loadstones; & an inert piece of ore, & one possessed of no
magnetick properties, & just thrown out[98] of the pit, when roasted in the
fire & prepared with due art (by the elimination of humours & foreign
excretions) awakes, and becomes in power & potency a magnet, * occasionally
a stone or iron ore is mined, which attracts forthwith without being
prepared: for native iron of the right colour attracts and governs iron
magnetically. One form then belongs to the one mineral, one species, one
self-same essence. For to me there seems to be a greater difference, &
unlikeness, between the strongest {37} loadstone, & a weak one which scarce
can attract a single chip of iron; between one that is stout, strong,
metallick, & one that is soft, friable, clayey; amidst such variety of
colour, substance, quality, & weight; than there is on the one hand between
the best ore, rich in iron, or iron that is metallick from the beginning,
and on the other the most excellent loadstone. Usually, too, there are no
marks to distinguish them, and even metallurgists cannot decide between
them, because they agree together in all respects. Moreover we see that the
best loadstone and the ore of iron are both as it were distressed by the
same maladies & diseases, both run to old age in the same way & exhibit the
same marks of it, are preserved & keep their properties by the same
remedies & safeguards; & yet again the one increases the potency of the
other, & by artfully devised adjuncts marvellously intensifies, & exalts
it. For both are impaired by the more acrid juices as by poisons, & the
aqua fortis of the Chemists inflicts on both the same wounds, and when
exposed too long to harm from the atmosphere, they both alike pine away, so
to speak, & grow old; each is preserved by being kept in the dust &
scrapings of the other; & when a fit piece of steel or iron is adjoined
above its pole, the loadstone's vigour is augmented through the firm union.
The loadstone is laid up in iron filings, not that iron is its food; as
though loadstone were alive and needed feeding, as Cardan
philosophizes[99]; nor yet that so it is delivered from the inclemency of
the weather (for which cause it as well as iron is laid up in bran by
Scaliger; mistakenly, however, for they are not preserved well in this way,
and keep for years their own fixed forms): nor yet, since they remain
perfect by the mutual action of their powders, do their extremities waste
away, but are cherished & preserved, like by like. For just as in their own
places, in the mines, bodies like to each other endure for many ages entire
and uncorrupt, when surrounded by bodies of the same stuff, as the lesser
interior parts in a great mass: so loadstone and ore of iron, when inclosed
in a mound of the same material, do not exhale their native humour, do not
waste away, but retain their soundness. A loadstone lasts longer in filings
of smelted iron, & a piece of iron ore excellently also in dust of
loadstone; as also smelted iron in filings of loadstone & even in those of
iron. Then both these allied bodies have a true & just form of one & the
same species; a form which until this day was considered by all, owing to
their outward unlikeness & the inequality of the potency that is the same
innate in both, to be different & unlike in kind; the smatterers not
understanding that the same powers, though differing in strength, exist in
both alike. And in fact they both are true & intimate parts of the earth, &
as such retain the prime natural properties of mutually attracting, of
moving, & of disposing themselves toward the position of the world, {38}
and of the terrestrial globe; which properties they also impart to each
other, and increase, confirm, receive, and retain each other's forces. The
stronger fortifies the weaker, not as though aught were taken away from its
own substance, or its proper vigour, nor because any corporeal substance is
imparted, but the dormant virtue of the one is aroused by the other,
without loss. For if with a single small stone you touch a thousand bits of
iron for the use of mariners[100], that loadstone attracts iron no less
strongly than before; with the same stone weighing one pound, any one will
be able to suspend in the air a thousand pounds of iron. For if any one
were to fix high up on the walls so many iron nails of so great a weight, &
were to apply to them the same number of nails touched, according to the
art, by a loadstone, they would all be seen to hang in the air through the
force of one small stone. So this is not solely the action, labour, or
outlay of the loadstone; but the iron, which is in a sense an extract from
loadstone, and a fusion of loadstone into metal, & conceives vigour from
it, & by proximity strengthens the magnetick faculties, doth itself, from
whatever lode it may have come, raise its own inborn forces through the
presence & contact of the stone, even when solid bodies intervene. Iron
that has been touched, acts anew on another piece of iron by contact, &
adapts it for magnetick movements, & this again a third. But if you rub
with a loadstone any other metal, or wood, or bones, or glass, as they will
not be moved toward any particular and determinate quarter of heaven, nor
be attracted by any magnetick body, so they are able not to impart any
magnetick property to other bodies or to iron itself by attrition, & by
infection. Loadstone differs from iron ore, as also from some weaker
magnets, in that when molten in the furnace into a ferric & metallick fused
mass, it does not so readily flow & dissolve into metal; but is sometimes
burnt to ashes in large furnaces; a result which it is reasonable to
suppose arises from its having some kind of sulphureous matter mixed with
it, or from its own excellence & simpler nature, or from the likeness &
common form which it has with the common mother, the Great Magnet. For
earths, and iron stones, magnets abounding in metal, are the more imbued &
marred with excrementitious metallick humours, and earthy corruptions of
substance, as numbers of loadstones are weaker from the mine; hence they
are a little further remote from the common mother, & are degenerate, &
when smelted in the furnace undergo fusion more easily, & give out a more
certain metallick product, & a metal that is softer, not a tough steel. The
majority of loadstones (if not unfairly burnt[101]) yield in the furnace a
very excellent iron. But iron ore also agrees in all those primary
qualities with loadstone; for both, being nearer and more closely akin to
the earth above all bodies known to us, have in themselves {39} a magnetick
substance, & one that is more homogenic, true & cognate with the globe of
the earth; less infested & spoiled by foreign blemish; less confused with
the outgrowths of earth's surface, & less debased by corrupt products. And
for this reason Aristotle in the fourth book of his _Meteora_ seems not
unfairly to separate iron from all the rest of the metals. Gold, he says,
silver, copper, tin, lead, belong to water; but iron is of the earth.
Galen, in the fourth chapter of _De Facultatibus Simplicium
Medicamentorum_, says that iron is an earthy & dense body. Accordingly a
strong loadstone is on our showing especially of the earth: the next place
is occupied by iron ore or weaker loadstone; so the loadstone is by nature
and origin[102]** of iron, and it and magnetick iron are both one in kind.
Iron ore yields iron in furnaces; loadstone also pours forth iron in the
furnaces, but of a much more excellent sort, that which is called steel or
blade-edge; and the better sort of iron ore is a weak loadstone, the best
loadstone being a most excellent ore of iron, in which, as is to be shown
by us, the primary properties are grand and conspicuous. Weaker loadstone
or iron ore is that in which these properties are more obscure, feeble, and
are scarce perceptible to the senses.
* * * * *