at its northern
rising. The College of Coimbra[22] seeks the cause in some part of the
heaven near the pole: Scaliger in section CXXXI. of his _Exercitationes_ on
Cardan suggests a heavenly cause unknown to himself, and terrestrial
loadstones nowhere yet discovered. A cause not due to those sideritic
mountains named above, but to that power which fashioned them, namely that
portion of the heaven which overhangs that northern point. This view is
garnished with a wealth of words by that erudite man, and crowned with many
marginal subtilities; but with reasonings not so subtile. Martin Cortes[23]
considers that there is a place of attraction beyond the poles, which he
judges to be the moving heavens. One Bessardus[24], a Frenchman, with no
less folly notes the pole of the zodiack. Jacobus Severtius[25], of Paris,
while quoting a few points, fashions new errors as to loadstones of
different parts of the earth being different in direction: and also as to
there being eastern and western parts of the loadstone. Robert Norman[26],
an Englishman, fixes a point and region respective, not attractive; to
which the magnetical iron is collimated, but is not itself attracted.
Franciscus Maurolycus[27] treats of a few problems on the loadstone, taking
the trite views of others, and avers that the variation is due to a certain
magnetical island mentioned by Olaus Magnus[28]. Josephus Acosta[29],
though quite ignorant about the loadstone, nevertheless pours forth vapid
talk upon the loadstone. Livio Sanuto[30] in his Italian _Geographia_,
discusses at length the question whether the prime magnetick {6} meridian
and the magnetick poles are in the heavens or in the earth; also about an
instrument for finding the longitude: but through not understanding
magnetical nature, he raises nothing but errors and mists in that so
important notion. Fortunius Affaytatus[31] philosophizes foolishly enough
on the attraction of iron, and its turning to the poles. Most recently,
Baptista Porta[32], no ordinary philosopher, in his _Magia Naturalis_, has
made the seventh book a custodian and distributor of the marvels of the
loadstone; but little did he know or ever see of magnetick motions; and
some things that he noted of the powers which it manifested, either learned
by him from the Reverend Maestro Paolo, the Venetian[33], or evolved from
his own vigils, were not so well discovered or observed; but abound in
utterly false experiments, as will be clear in d