Bibliographical history of electricity & magnetism, chronologically arranged
History
Bibliographical history of electricity & magnetism, chronologically arranged
Electricity -- History; Electricity -- History -- Bibliography; Magnetism -- History; Magnetism -- History -- Bibliography; Science, Medieval
=A.D. 1624.=--Gunter (Edmund), professor of astronomy at Gresham
College, publishes his work “Of the Sector, Cross-Staff, and other
Instruments,” at Chap. V of the second book of which he gives the
result of the eight observations he made on the variation of the
variation “in various parts of the ground” at Limehouse on the 13th
of June, 1622. His observations of the declination, as given by Prof.
Gellibrand, are detailed at Chap. I of Walker’s “Ter. and Cos. Mag.,”
Cambridge, 1866.
REFERENCES.--De La Rive, “Electricity,” etc., Vol. I. p. 165;
Poggendorff, “Geschichte der Physik,” Leipzig, 1879, p. 275.
=A.D. 1625.=--Carpenter (Nathaniel), Dean of Ireland, well-known
mathematician, publishes at Oxford, “Geography delineated forth in
two bookes, containing the sphæricall and topicall parts thereof,”
wherein he thus alludes to Dr. Gilbert’s “De Magnete”: “Magneticall
proprieties, I find in ancient writers, as little knowne as their
causes; and if any matter herein were broached, it was merely
conjectural, and depending on no certain demonstration; neither had we
any certain or satisfactory knowledge of the thing vntill such time as
it pleased God to raise vp one of our countrymen, D. Gilbert, who, to
his euerlasting praise, hath trodden out a new path to Philosophie, and
on the Loadstone, erected a large Trophie to commend him to posterity.
This famous Doctor being as pregnant in witty apprehension as diligent
in curious search of naturall causes, after many experiments and long
enquiry, found the causes of most magneticall motions and proprieties
hid in the magneticall _temper_ and constitution of the Earth,
and that the earth it selfe was a meere magneticall body challenging
all those proprieties, and more than haue expressed themselves in
the Loadstone; which opinion of his was no sooner broached than it
was embraced, and wel-commed by many prime wits as well English as
Forraine. Insomuch that it hath of late taken large root and gotten
much ground of our vulgar Philosophie.”
REFERENCES.--“Nature,” September 26, 1901; “Dict. of Nat.
Biogr.,” Vol. IX. pp. 161–162; Larousse, “Dict.,” Vol. IV. p.
438; Prince’s “Worthies” (1810), pp. 173–175, 603.
=A.D. 1625.=--Naudé (Gabriel), a celebrated French savant and one
of the most learned of his day, also physician to King Louis XIII, and
an intimate friend of Gassendi, is the author of “Apologie pour tous,”
etc. (“Apology for great men falsely accused of magic”), of which other
editions appeared in 1652, 1669 and 1712. The magico-theosophical
philosophy, as Madame Blavatsky expresses it, is fully indicated in
his work, and he proved to be the warmest defender of the doctrines of
occult magnetism, of which he was one of the first propounders.
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