Page:On the Magnet - Gilbert (1900 translation of 1600 work).djvu/230

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WILLIAM GILBERT

dispose magneticks and incite them, as if the orbes of virtue were solid and material loadstones. For the magnetick force does not pass through the whole medium or really exist as in a continuous body; so the orbes are magnetick, and yet not real orbes nor existent by themselves.

Diagram of motions in magnetick orbes.

A B is the axis of the terrella and of the orbes, C D the æquator. On all the orbes, as on the terrella, at the equator the versorium arranges itself along the plane of the horizon; on the axis it everywhere looks perpendicularly toward the centre; in the intermediate spaces E looks toward D; and G looks toward H, not toward F, as the versorium L does on the surface of the terrella. But as is the relation of L to F on the surface of the terella, so is that of G to H on its orbe and of E to D on its orbe; also all the rotations onthe