A few of his many characteristic remarks and observations are, however, best given in his own words, as extracted from the “Philosophical Works” above alluded to: “The invention of the mariner’s needle, which giveth the direction, is no less benefit for navigation than the invention of the sails, which give the motion” (London, 1738, Vol. I. p. 62). “I, with a certain body (rough diamond), not bigger than a pea, but very vigorously attractive, moved a steel needle, freely poised, about three minutes after I had left off rubbing it” (Vol. I. p. 508). Speaking elsewhere of his experiments with diamonds, he says: “But when I came to apply it (the loadstone) to one more, which look’d somewhat duller than almost any of the rest, I found that it had in it particles enough of an iron nature to make it a magnetical body and observed without surprise that not only it would suffer itself to be taken up by the strongest pole of the loadstone, but when the pole was offer’d within a convenient distance it would readily leap through the air to fasten itself to it.” “I removed a piece of amber in the sunbeams till they had made it moderately hot and then found it would attract those light bodies it would not stir before” (Vol. I. p. 400, and Vol. III. p. 52). “Whether from such experiments one may argue that it is but, as it were, by accident that amber attracts another body, and not this the amber; and whether these ought to make us question, if _electrics may_, with so much propriety, as has been generally supposed, _be said to attract_, are doubts, that my design does not oblige me to examine” (Vol. IV. p. 350).