William Gilbert of Colchester, physician of London, On the magnet : magnetick bodies also, and on the great magnet the earth ; a new physiology, demonstrated by many arguments & experiments / William Gilbert.

  • Gilbert, William, 1544-1603.
Date:
1901
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: William Gilbert of Colchester, physician of London, On the magnet : magnetick bodies also, and on the great magnet the earth ; a new physiology, demonstrated by many arguments & experiments / William Gilbert. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by Royal College of Physicians, London. The original may be consulted at Royal College of Physicians, London.

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    CHAP. VII. What Iron is, and of what fubftance, and its ufes. OR that now we have declared the origin and nature of the loadftone, we think it neceffary firft to add a hiftory of iron and to indicate the hitherto unknown forces of iron, before this our difcourfe goes on to the explanation of magnetick difficulties and demonftrations, and to deal with the coitions and harmonies of loadftone with iron. Iron is by all reckoned in the clafs of metals, and is a metal livid in colour, very hard, glows red-hot before it melts, being moft difficult of fufion, is beaten out under the hammer, and is very refonant. Chemifts fay that if a bed of fixed earthy fulphur be combined with fixed earthy quick- filver, and the two together are neither pure white but of a livid whitenefs, if the fulphur prevail, iron is formed. For thefe ftern mafters of metals who by many inventions twilling them about, pound, calcine, diffolve, fublime, and precipitate, decide that this metal, both on account of the earthy fulphur and of the earthy mercury, is more truly a fon of the earth than any other; they do not even think gold or filver, lead, tin, or copper itfelf fo earthy ; for that reafon it is not fmelted except in the hotted: furnaces, with bellows; and when thus fufed, on having again grown hard it is not melted again without heavy labour; but its flag with the utmoll difficulty. It is the hardeft of metals, fubduing and breaking all things, by reafon of the llrong concretion of the more earthy matter. Wherefore we ffiall better underftand what iron is, when we ffiall declare what are the caufes and fubftance of metals, in a different way from thofe who before our time have confidered them. Ariftotle takes the material of the metals to be vapour. The chemifts in chorus pronounce their adtual elements to be fulphur and quickfilver. Gilgil Mauritanus gives it as allies moiftened with water. Georgius Agricola makes it out to be water and earth mixed ; nor, to be fure, is there any difference between his opinion and the pofition taken by Mauritanus. But ours is that metals arife and efflorefce at the fummits of the earth’s globe, being dif- tinguiffied each by its own form, like fome of the other fubflances dug out of it, and all bodies around us. The earth’s globe does not confift of allies or inert dull. Nor is freffi water an element, but a more Ample confiftency of evaporated fluids of the earth. Undtuous bodies, freffi water devoid of properties, quickfilver and fulphur, none of thefe are principia of metals: thefe latter things