On the magnet, magnetick bodies also, and on the great magnet the earth: a new physiology, demonstrated by many arguments & experiments
History
On the magnet, magnetick bodies also, and on the great magnet the earth: a new physiology, demonstrated by many arguments & experiments
Magnetism -- Early works to 1800
[61] PAGE 12, LINE 30. Page 12, line 35. _integtum_ appears to be a
misprint for _integrum_, which is the reading of editions 1628 and 1633.
[62] PAGE 13, LINE 4. Page 13, line 3. [Greek: mikrogê] _seu Terrella_.
Although rounded loadstones had been used before Gilbert's time (see
Peregrinus, p. 3 of Augsburg edition of 1558, or Baptista Porta, p. 194, of
English edition of 1658), Gilbert's use of the spherical loadstone as a
model of the globe of the earth is distinctive. The name _Terrella_
remained in the language. In _Pepys's Diary_ we read how on October 2,
1663, he "received a letter from Mr. Barlow with a terella." John Evelyn,
in his _Diary_, July, 1655, mentions a "pretty terella with the circles and
showing the magnetic deviations."
A Terrella, 4½ inches in diameter, was presented in 1662 by King Charles I.
to the Royal Society, and is still in its possession. It was examined in
1687 (see _Phil. Transactions_ for that year) by the Society to see whether
the positions of its poles had changed.
In Grew's _Catalogue and Description of the Rarities belonging to the Royal
Society and preserved at Gresham College_ (London, 1681, p. 364) is
mentioned a Terrella contrived by Sir Christopher Wren, with one half
immersed in the centre of a plane horizontal table, so as to be like a
Globe with the poles in the horizon, having thirty-two magnet needles
mounted in the margin of the table to show "the different respect of the
_Needle_ to the several _Points_ of the _Loadstone_."
In Sir John Pettus's _Fleta Minor_, London, 1683, in the _Dictionary of
Metallick Words_ at the end, under the word _Loadstone_ occurs the
following passage:
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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