Page:On the Magnet - Gilbert (1900 translation of 1600 work).djvu/149

This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
ON THE LOADSTONE, BK. III.
127

vided it is touched by either end. Wherefore all the cusps at B acquire the same verticity, after they are separated, but opposite to that pole of the stone; wherefore also they are united to the loadstone at the pole B; and all the crosses in the present figure have the opposite verticity to the pole E, and are moved and laid hold of by E when they are in a convenient position. It is exactly the same in the case of the long stone F H divided at G; F and H always move, both in the whole and in the divided stone, to opposite poles of the earth, and O and P mutually attract one another, the one of them being the northern, the other the southern. For, supposing H to have been the southern in the whole stone and F the northern, P will be the northern with respect to H in the divided stone, and O the southern with respect to F. So also F and H mutually incline to a connection, if they are turned a very little toward one another, and run together at length and join. But supposing the division of the stone to have been meridional (that is, according to the line of a meridian, not of any parallel circle), then they turn Stone divided on a meridian. round, and A attracts B, and the end B is attracted to A and attracts A, until, being turned round, they are connected and cemented together; because magnetick attraction is not made along the parallels, but meridionally. For this reason pieces of iron placed on a terrella whose poles are A B, near the æquator along parallels, * do not combine or stick together firmly:

But