Gilbert had no more love for Paracelsus than for Albertus Magnus or others of the magic-mongers. Indeed the few passages in Paracelsus on the magnet are sorry stuff. They will mostly be found in the seventh volume of his collected works (_Opera omnia_, Frankfurt, 1603). A sample may be taken from the English work publisht in London, 1650, with the title: _Of the Nature of Things, Nine Books; written by Philipp Theophrastus of Hohenheim, called Paracelsvs_. "For any Loadstone that Mercury hath but touched, or which hath been smeered with Mercuriall oyle, or only put into Mercury will never draw Iron more" (p. 23). "The life of the Loadstone is the spirit of Iron; which may bee extracted, and taken away with spirit of Wine" (p. 32). [11] PAGE 3, LINE 13. Page 3, line 11. _Encelius_ (or _Entzelt_, Christoph) {8} wrote a work publisht in 1551 at Frankfurt, with the title _De re metallica, hoc est, de origine, varietate, et natura corporum metallicorum, lapidum, gemmarum, atque aliarum quæ ex fodinis eruuntur, rerum, ad medicine usum deservientium, libri iii_. This is written in a singular medley of Latin and German. Gilbert undoubtedly took from it many of his ideas about the properties of metals. See the note to p. 27 on _plumbum album_. [12] PAGE 3, LINE 20. Page 3, line 21. _Thomas Aquinas._--The reference is to his commentaries upon the _Physica_ of Aristotle. The passage will be found on p. 96 _bis_ of the Giunta edition (Venet., 1539). The essential part is quoted by Gilbert himself on p. 64. [13] PAGE 3, LINE 39. Page 3, line 45. _pyxidem._--The word _pyxis_, which occurs here, and in the next sentence as _pyxidem nauticam_, is translated _compass_. Eleven lines lower occurs the term _nautica pyxidula_. This latter word, literally the "little compass," certainly refers to the portable compass used at sea. Compare several passages in Book IV. where a contrasting use is made of these terms; for example, on pp. 177 and 202. Calcagninus, _De re nautica_, uses the term _pyxidecula_ for an instrument which he describes as "vitro intecta." On p. 152, line 9, Gilbert uses the non-classical noun _compassus_, "boreale lilium compassi (quod Boream respicit)," and again on p. 178, line 3. [14] PAGE 4, LINE 2. Page 4, line 2. _Melphitani._--The inhabitants of Amalfi in the kingdom of Naples. The claim of the discovery or invention of the mariners' compass in the year 1302 by one Joannes Goia, or Gioia, also named as Flavio Goia, has been much disputed. In Guthrie's _New System of Modern Geography_ (London, 1792, p. 1036), in the Chronology, is set down for the year 1302: "The mariner's compass invented, or improved by Givia, of Naples. The flower de luce, the arms of the Duke of Anjou, then King of Naples, was placed by him at the point of the needle, in compliment to that prince."