In Chap. XXVIII he says that “Whilst the loadstone is moved under a table of wood, stone or any metal, except iron, the needle in the mariner’s compass will move above, as if there is no body between them. St. Augustine (‘Liber de Civitate Dei’) knew this experiment (likewise alluded to by Camillus Leonardus in his ‘Speculum Lapidum,’ published 1502). But that is much more wonderful that I have heerd: that if one hold a loadstone under a piece of silver, and put a piece of iron above the silver, as he moves his hand underneath that holds the stone, so will the iron move above; and the silver being in the middle, and suffering nothing, running so swiftly up and down, that the stone was pulled from the hand of the man, and took hold of the iron.” Chap. XXX is headed: “A loadstone on a plate of iron, will not stir iron,” and he again quotes Lucretius: “Pieces of iron I have seen When onely brass was put between Them and the Loadstone, to recoil: Brass in the middle made this broil.” In Chap. XXXII he tells us that an Italian “whose name was Amalphus ... knew not the Mariner’s Card, but stuck the needle in a reed, or a piece of wood, cross over: and he put the needles into a vessel full of water that they might flote freely: then carrying about the loadstone, the needles would follow it: which being taken away, as by a certain natural motion, the points of the needles would turn to the north pole: and, having found that, stand still.... Now the Mariner’s Compass is made, and a needle touched with the Loadstone, is so fitted to it, that, by discovering the pole by it, all other parts of the heavens are known. There is made a rundle with a Latin-navel upon a point of the same metal, that it may run roundly freely. Whereupon, by the touching onely of one end, the needle not alone partakes of the vertues of it, but of the other end also, whether it will or not....” Chap. XLVIII is headed “Whether Garlick can hinder the vertues of the loadstone.” By Porta we are informed that “Plutarch saith Garlick is at great enmity with the loadstone; and such antipathy and hatred there is between these invisible creatures, that if a loadstone be smeered with Garlick, it will drive away iron from it,” which is confirmed by Ptolemy, who states “that the loadstone will not draw iron, if it be anoynted with Garlick; as Amber will no more draw straws, and other light things to it, if they be first steeped in oyl.” He found that when the loadstone “was all anoynted over the juice of Garlick, it did perform its office as well as if it had never been touched with it.”