On Mutation of Verticity and of Magnetick
Properties, or on alteration in the power
_excited by a loadstone_.
Friction with a loadstone gives to a piece of iron a verticity strong
enough; not, however, so stable that the iron may not by being rubbed on
the opposite part (not only with a more powerful loadstone, but with the
same) be changed and deprived of all its former verticity, and indued with
a new and opposite one. Take a piece of iron wire and rub each end of the
wire equally with one and the same pole of a loadstone, and let it be
passed through a suitable cork and place it on water. Then truly one end of
the wire will be directed toward that pole of the earth toward which that
end of the stone will not turn. But which end of the iron wire will it be?
That certainly which was rubbed last. Rub the other end of this again with
the same pole, and immediately * that end will turn itself in the opposite
direction. Again touch the former end of the iron wire only with the same
pole of the loadstone as before; and that[210] end, having gained the
command, immediately changes to the contrary side. So you will be able to
change the property of the iron frequently, and that end of the wire rules
which has been touched the last. Now then merely hold the boreal pole of
the stone for some time near the boreal part of the wire which was last
touched, so that it does not touch, but so that it is removed from it by
one, two, or even three digits, if the stone have been pretty * strong; and
again it will change its property and will turn round to the contrary side;
which will also happen (albeit rather more feebly) even if the loadstone be
removed to a distance of four digits. You will be able to do the same
thing, moreover, with both the austral and the boreal part of the stone in
all these experiments. Verticity may likewise be acquired and changed when
thin plates of gold, * silver, and glass are interposed between the stone
and the end of the iron or iron wire, if the stone were rather strong, even
if the {138} intermediate lamina is not touched either by the iron or the
stone. And these changes of verticity take place in smelted iron. Indeed
what the one pole of the stone implants and excites, the other disturbs and
extinguishes, and confers a new force. For it does not require a stronger
loadstone to take away the weaker and sluggish virtue and to implant the
new one; nor is iron inebriated by the equal strength of loadstones, and
made utterly uncertain and neutral, as Baptista Porta teaches; but by one
and the same loadstone, or by loadstones endowed with equal power and
might, its strength is, in accordance with magnetick rules, turned round
and changed, excited, repaired, or disturbed. But a loadstone itself, by
being rubbed on another, whether a larger or a more powerful stone, is not
disturbed from its own property and verticity, nor does it turn round
toward the opposite direction in its boat, or to the other pole opposite to
that to which it inclines by its own nature and implanted verticity. For
strength which is innate and has been implanted for a very long time abides
more firmly, nor does it easily yield from its ancient holding; and that
which has grown for a long time is not all of a sudden brought to nothing,
without the destruction of the substance containing it. Nevertheless in a
long interval of time a change * does take place; in one year, that is to
say, or two, or sometimes in a few months; doubtless when a weaker
loadstone remains lying by a stronger one contrary to the order of nature,
namely, with the northern pole of one loadstone adjoined to the northern
pole of another, or the southern to the southern. For so the weaker
strength gradually declines with the lapse of time.
* * * * *