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The principia; or, the first principles of natural things, being new attempts toward a philosophical explanation of the elementary world / By Emanuel Swedenborg ... Translated from the Latin by the Rev. Augustus Clissold.

  • Emmanuel Swedenborg
Date:
1845-1846
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The principia; or, the first principles of natural things, being new attempts toward a philosophical explanation of the elementary world / By Emanuel Swedenborg ... Translated from the Latin by the Rev. Augustus Clissold. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    presented to the point of a needle six inches long, attracted it but little ; still the attraction was visible to the eye ; the needle’s point, receding from its former position about a quarter of a degree, as soon as the vitriol was held near. This experiment I repeated several times. At first I thought I had been led into error; as that acute observer Lem- merius, in VHist. de VAcad. Ttoy.^ a.d. 1706, had observed, that the vitriol of steel did not attract the magnet. Perhaps however he did not make the experiment with so long a needle as I did, but only with one of the common length; in which case the most experienced eye cannot observe any motion of attraction ; a motion which is visible only when we use an extremely long needle. This force of attraction de¬ creased from the filings when dissolved, for the reason that all the parts were removed from each other; and, being agitated simultaneously in different directions, like the filings shaken in the preceding experiment, consequently lost their force. The solution of the iron was first effected in order that the iron might be the more easily deprived of its sulphur; for sulphur adheres most powerfully to acid spirits, and to¬ gether with these, by the aid of fire, readily flies off. From the vitriol placed in a retort I continued to elicit, by means of the fire, an acid spirit mixed with sulphur ; until the matter resting at the bottom was of a red colour, commonly called the colcothar [caput mortuuni] of vitriol. When the latter was presented to the forernentioned long needle, it occasioned a motion, slight indeed, but greater than that which the vitriol alone had before produced. The acid spirit collected in a phial and applied to the point of the needle gave rise to no symptoms of attrac¬ tion ; whence I conclude that sulphur of iron is not the cause of the magnetic virtue. I then placed the colcothar on a most vehement fire, having put it into an earthen crucible; and the result was a black and thin mass, in which there was no longer any sign of sulphur; as Lemmerius has correctly remarked. This was easily friable into dust; when thrown into the fire it emitted no sparks, as filings of iron do ; and it seemed to be deprived of nearly all its salt, since it did not contract rust either in the air or in salt water. It scarcely affords a tincture : nor does it effervesce with oil of vitriol, spirit of salt, or spirit of nitre. This mass, whether remaining whole or pounded to dust, is strongly attracted by the magnet and by the needle, and at a much greater dis¬ tance than fresh filings of iron; a circumstance which manifestly proves, that neither sulphur nor salt in the iron is the matter giving rise to at¬ traction ; but that it is some other matter, which is attracted the more strongly in proportion as it is the more entirely deprived of sulphur and salt.
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