reject that common opinion of recent writers concerning magnetick mountains, or any magnetick rock, or any phantasmal pole distant from the pole of the earth, by which the motion of the compass or versorium is controlled. This opinion, previously invented by others, Fracastorio himself adopted and developed; but it is entirely at variance with experience. For in that case in different places at sea and on land the point of variation would change toward the east or west in proportion and geometrical symmetry, and the versorium would always respect the magnetick pole: but experience teaches that there is no such definite pole or fixed terminus on the earth to account for the variation. For the arcs of * variation are changed variously and erratically, not only on different meridians but on the same meridian; and when, according to this opinion of the moderns, the deviation should be more and more toward the east, then suddenly, with a small change of locality, the deviation is from the north toward the west as in the northern regions near Nova Zembla. Moreover, in the southern regions, and at sea at a great distance from the æquator towards the antarctick pole, there are frequent and great variations, and not only in the northern regions, from the magnetick mountains. But the cogitations of others are still more vain and trifling, such as that of Cortes about a moving influence beyond all the heavens; that of {153} Marsilius Ficinus about a star in the Bear; that of Peter Peregrinus about the pole of the world; that of Cardan, who derives it from the rising of a star in the tail of the Bear[218]; of Bessardus, the Frenchman, from the pole of the Zodiack; that of Livio Sanuto from some magnetick meridian; that of Franciscus Maurolycus from a magnetical island; that of Scaliger from the heavens and mountains; that of Robert Norman, the Englishman, from a point respective. Leaving therefore these opinions, which are at variance with common experience or by no means proved, let us seek the true cause of the variation. The great magnet or terrestrial globe directs iron (as I have said) toward the north and south; and excited iron quickly settles itself toward those termini. Since, however, the globe of the earth is defective and uneven on its surface and marred by its diverse composition, and since it has parts very high and convex (to the height of some miles), and those uniform neither in composition nor body, but opposite and dissimilar: it comes to pass that the whole of that force of the earth diverts magnetical bodies in its periphery toward the stronger and more prominent connected magnetick parts. Hence on the outermost surface of the earth magnetical bodies are slightly perverted from the true meridian. Moreover, since the surface of the globe is divided into high lands and deep seas, into great continental lands, into ocean and vastest seas, and since the force of all magnetical motions is derived from the constant and