That the globe of the earth is magnetick, & a magnet; &
_how in our hands the magnet stone has all the primary_
forces of the earth, while the earth by the
_same powers remains constant in a
fixed direction in the
universe._
Prior to bringing forward the causes of magnetical motions, & laying open
the proofs of things hidden for so many ages, & our experiments (the true
foundations of terrestrial philosophy), we have to establish & present to
the view of the learned our New & unheard of doctrine about the earth; and
this, when argued by us on the grounds of its probability, with subsequent
{40} experiments & proofs, will be as certainly assured as anything in
philosophy ever has been considered & confirmed by clever arguments or
mathematical proofs. The terrene mass, which together with the vasty ocean
produces the sphærick figure & constitutes our globe, being of a firm &
constant substance, is not easily changed, does not wander about, &
fluctuate with uncertain motions, like the seas, & flowing waves: but holds
all its volume of moisture in certain beds & bounds, & as it were in
oft-met veins, that it may be the less diffused & dissipated at random. Yet
the solid magnitude of the earth prevails & reigns supreme in the nature of
our globe. Water, however, is attached to it, & as an appendage only, & a
flux emanating from it; whose force from the beginning is conjoined with
the earth through its smallest parts, and is innate in its substance. This
moisture the earth as it grows hot throws off freely when it is of the
greatest possible service in the generation of things. But the thews and
dominant stuff of the globe is that terrene body which far exceeds in
quantity all the volume of flowing streams and open waters (whatever vulgar
philosophers may dream of the magnitudes and proportions of their
elements), and which takes up most of the whole globe and almost fills it
internally, and by itself almost suffices to endow it with sphærick shape.
For the seas only fill certain not very deep or profound hollows, since
they rarely go down to a depth of a mile and generally do not exceed a
hundred or 50 fathoms. For so it is ascertained by the observations of
seamen when by the plumb-line and sinker its abysms are explored with the
nautical sounder; which depths relatively to the dimensions of the globe,
do not much deform its globular shape. Small then appears to be that
portion of the real earth that ever emerges to be seen by man, or is turned
up; since we cannot penetrate deeper into its bowels, further than the
wreckage of its outer efflorescence, either by reason of the waters which
gush up in deep workings, as through veins, or for want of a wholesome air
to support life in the miners, or on account of the vast cost that would be
incurred in pumping out such huge workings[103], and many other
difficulties; so that to have gone down to a depth of four hundred, or
(which is of rarest occurrence) of five hundred fathoms[104] as in a few
mines, appears to all a stupendous undertaking. But it is easy to
understand how minute, how almost negligibly small a portion that 500
fathoms is of the earth's diameter, which is 6,872 miles. It is then parts
only of the earth's circumference and of its prominences that are perceived
by us with our senses; and these in all regions appear to us to be either
loamy, or clayey, or sandy, or full of various soils, or marls: or lots of
stones or gravel meet us, or beds of salt, or a metallick lode, and metals
in abundance. In the sea and in deep waters, however, either reefs, and
huge boulders, or smaller stones, or sands, or mud {41} are found by
mariners as they sound the depths. Nowhere does the Aristotelian element of
_earth_ come to light; and the Peripateticks are the sport of their own
vain dreams about elements. Yet the lower bulk of the earth and the inward
parts of the globe consist of such bodies; for they could not have existed,
unless they had been related to and exposed to the air and water, and to
the light and influences of the heavenly bodies, in like manner as they are
generated, and pass into many dissimilar forms of things, and are changed
by a perpetual law of succession. Yet the interior parts imitate them, and
betake themselves to their own source, on the principle of terrene matter,
albeit they have lost the first qualities and the natural terrene form, and
are borne towards the earth's centre, and cohære with the globe of the
earth, from which they cannot be wrenched asunder except by force. But the
loadstone and all magneticks, not the stone only, but every magnetick
homogenic substance, would seem to contain the virtue of the earth's core
and of its inmost bowels, and to hold within itself and to have conceived
that which is the secret and inward principle of its substance; and it
possesses the actions peculiar to the globe of attracting, directing,
disposing, rotating, stationing itself in the universe, according to the
rule of the whole, and it contains and regulates the dominant powers of the
globe; which are the chief tokens and proofs of a certain distinguishing
combination, and of a nature most thoroughly conjoint. For if among actual
bodies one sees something move and breathe, and experience sensations, and
be inclined and impelled by reason, will one not, knowing and seeing this,
conclude that it is a man or something rather like a man, than that it is a
stone or a stick? The loadstone far excels all other bodies known to us in
virtues and properties pertaining to the common mother: but those
properties have been far too little understood or realized by philosophers:
for to its body bodies magnetical rush in from all sides and cleave to it,
as we see them do in the case of the earth. It has poles, not mathematical
points, but natural termini of force excelling in primary efficiency by the
co-operation of the whole: and there are poles in like manner in the earth
which our forefathers sought ever in the sky: it has an æquator, a natural
dividing line between the two poles, just as the earth has: for of all
lines drawn by the mathematicians on the terrestrial globe, the æquator is
the natural boundary, and is not, as will hereafter appear, merely a
mathematical circle. It, like the earth, acquires Direction and stability
toward North and South, as the earth does; also it has a circular motion
toward the position of the earth, wherein it adjusts itself to its rule: it
follows the ascensions and declinations of the earth's poles, and conforms
exactly to the same, and by itself raises its own poles above the {42}
horizon naturally according to the law of the particular country and
region, or sinks below it. The loadstone derives temporary properties, and
acquires its verticity from the earth, and iron is affected by the
verticity of the globe even as iron is by a loadstone: Magneticks are
conformable to and are regulated by the earth, and are subject to the earth
in all their motions. All its movements harmonize with, and strictly wait
upon, the geometry and form of the earth, as we shall afterwards prove by
most conclusive experiments and diagrams; and the chief part of the visible
earth is also magnetical, and has magnetick motions, although it be
disfigured by corruptions and mutations without end. Why then do we not
recognize this the chief homogenic substance of the earth, likest of
substances to its inner nature and closest allied to its very marrow? For
none of the other mixed earths suitable for agriculture, no other
metalliferous veins, nor stones, nor sand, nor other fragments of the earth
which have come to our view possess such constant and peculiar powers. And
yet we do not assume that the whole interior of this globe of ours is
composed of stones or iron (although Franciscus Maurolycus, that learned
man, deems the whole of the earth's interior to consist of solid stone).
For not every loadstone that we have is a stone, it being sometimes like a
clod, or like clay and iron either firmly compacted together out of various
materials, or of a softer composition, or by heat reduced to the metallick
state; and the magnetick substance by reason of its location and of its
surroundings, and of the metallick matrix itself, is distinguished, at the
surface of the terrene mass, by many qualities and adventitious natures,
just as in clay it is marked by certain stones and iron lodes. But we
maintain that the true earth is a solid substance, homogeneous with the
globe, closely coherent, endowed with a primordial and (as in the other
globes of the universe) with a prepotent form; in which position it
persists with a fixed verticity, and revolves with a necessary motion and
an inherent tendency to turn, and it is this constitution, when true and
native, and not injured or disfigured by outward defects, that the
loadstone possesses above all bodies apparent to us, as if it were a more
truly homogenic part taken from the earth. Accordingly native iron which
_sui generis_ (as metallurgists term it), is formed when homogenic parts of
the earth grow together into a metallick lode; Loadstone being formed when
they are changed into metallick stone, or a lode of the finest iron, or
steel: so in other iron lodes the homogenic matter that goes together is
somewhat more imperfect; just as many parts of the earth, even the high
ground, is homogenic but so much more deformate. Smelted iron is fused and
smelted out of homogenic stuffs, and cleaves to the earth more tenaciously
than the ores themselves. Such then is our earth in its {43} inward parts,
possessed of a magnetick homogeneal nature, and upon such more perfect
foundations as these rests the whole nature of things terrestrial,
manifesting itself to us, in our more diligent scrutiny, everywhere in all
magnetick minerals, and iron ores, in all clay, and in numerous earths and
stones; while Aristotle's simple element, that most empty terrestrial
phantom of the Peripateticks, a rude, inert, cold, dry, simple matter, the
universal substratum, is dead, devoid of vigour, and has never presented
itself to any one, not even in sleep, and would be of no potency in nature.
Our philosophers were only dreaming when they spoke of a kind of simple and
inert matter. Cardan does not consider the loadstone to be any kind of
stone, "but a sort of perfected portion of some kind of earth that is
absolute; a token of which is its abundance, there being no place where it
is not found. And there is" (he says) "a power of iron in the wedded Earth
which is perfect in its own kind when it has received fertilizing force
from the male, that is to say, the stone of Hercules" (in his book _De
Proportionibus_). And later: "Because" (he says) "in the previous
proposition I have taught that iron is true earth." A strong loadstone
shows itself to be of the inward earth, and upon innumerable tests claims
to rank with the earth in the possession of a primary form, that by which
Earth herself abides in her own station and is directed in her courses.
Thus a weaker loadstone and every ore of iron, and nearly all clay, or
clayey earth, and numerous other sorts (yet more, or less, owing to the
different labefaction of fluids and slimes), keep their magnetick and
genuine earth-properties open to view, falling short of the characteristic
form, and deformate. For it is not iron alone (the smelted metal) that
points to the poles, nor is it the loadstone alone that is attracted by
another and made to revolve magnetically; but all iron ores, and other
stones, as Rhenish slates and the black ones from Avignon (the French call
them _Ardoises_) which they use for tiles, and many more of other colours
and substances, provided they have been prepared; as well as all clay,
grit[105], and some sorts of rocks, and, to speak more clearly, all the
more solid earth that is everywhere apparent; given that that earth be not
fouled with fatty and fluid corruptions; as mud, as mire, as accumulations
of putrid matter; nor deformate by the imperfections of sundry admixtures;
nor dripping with ooze, as marls; all are attracted by the loadstone, when
simply prepared by fire, and freed from their refuse humour; and as by the
loadstone so also by the earth herself they are drawn and controlled
magnetically, in a way different from all other bodies; and by that
inherent force settle themselves according to the orderly arrangement and
fabric of the universe and of the Earth, as will appear {44} later. Thus
every part of the earth which is removed from it exhibits by sure
experiments every impulse of the magnetick nature; by its various motions
it observes the globe of the earth and the principle common to both.
[Illustration]
* * * * *
{45} [Illustration]