med or unarmed, makes the loadstone raise a
greater weight by the opposite end[177]. A piece of iron also applied to
the pole of a magnet produces the same result, namely, that the other pole
will carry a greater weight of iron; just as a loadstone with a piece of
iron superposed on it (as in this figure) holds up a piece of iron below,
which it cannot hold, if the upper one be removed. * Magneticks in
conjunction make one magnetick. Wherefore as the mass increases, the
magnetick vigour is also augmented.

An armed loadstone, as well as an unarmed * one, runs more readily to a
larger piece of iron and combines more firmly with a larger piece than with
a lesser one.

* * * * *

CHAP. XXIII.

Magnetick Force causes motion towards unity,
_and binds firmly together bodies which are united_.

Magnetick fragments cohaere within their strength well and harmoniously
together. Pieces of iron in the presence of a loadstone (even if they are
not * touching the loadstone) run together, seek one another anxiously and
embrace one another, and when joined are as if they were cemented. Iron *
filings or the same reduced to powder inserted in paper tubes, placed upon
a stone meridionally or merely brought rather close to it, coalesce into
one body, and so many parts suddenly are concreted * and combine; and the
whole company of corpuscles thus conspiring together affects another piece
of iron and attracts it, as if it constituted one integral rod of iron; and
above the stone it is directed toward the North and South. But when they
are removed a long * {91} way from the stone, the particles (as if loosed
again) are separated and move apart singly. In this way also the
foundations of the world are connected and joined and cemented together
magnetically. So let Ptolemy of Alexandria, and his followers, and those
philosophers of ours, be the less terrified if the earth do move round in a
circle, nor threaten its dissolution.

Iron filings, after being heated for a long time, are attracted by a
loadstone, yet not so strongly or from so great a distance as when not
heated. A loadstone loses some of its virtue by too great a heat; for its
humour is set free, whence its peculiar nature is marred. Likewise also, if
iron filings are well burnt in a reverberatory furnace and converted into
saffron of Mars, they are not attracted by a loadstone; but if they are
heated, but not thoroughly burnt, they do stick t