"Now you see, from all this," added Rollo's father, "that when a magnet touches a piece of steel, like a needle, it immediately makes it a magnet itself; that is, it makes the two ends magnetic, one having one kind of magnetism, and the other the other kind; and then, if you take two magnets, and bring those two poles which have the same magnetism together, they repel one another; and if you bring those together which have different magnetisms, they attract each other." "How do you know that they are the same magnetisms that repel, and different that attract?" said Rollo's mother. "I will show you," said his father. Then he took the needles that he had used off from their floats, and laid them away. He took next two new needles, exactly of a size, and he held them together between his thumb and finger, with the eyes projecting together. Then he rubbed them once or twice upon the end of Jonas's magnet, saying, "There, you see I use both of these needles alike. Of course the eyes have both the same magnetisms. Now you will find that when I put one of them upon the float, and then bring the eyes together, they will repel each other; but an eye and a point will attract. So two points will repel." "But you have not magnetized the points," said Rollo's mother. "Yes," said his father. "When we magnetize one end, the other end becomes magnetized, itself, in the contrary way." So he put one of the needles upon the float, and then brought the eye of the other down very near to its eye. It was repelled, as he had said it would be. He then brought the two points together, and they were repelled. But if he brought an eye towards a point, or a point towards an eye, they were attracted. "This is the end of my lecture," said he, "for to-night." "O, father," said Rollo, "a little more." "No more to-night, only to recapitulate," said he. "Recapitulate? what is that?" "Why, tell you, briefly, the substance of what I have explained, so that you may remember it." "Well, father," said Rollo. "In the first place, a magnet has a peculiar and mysterious attractive power for iron, residing in its two extremities, which are called _its poles;_ and the power which resides in one extremity is, in some way or other, opposite in its nature to that of the other extremity. Each of these poles repels a pole like itself, and attracts one different from itself, in any other magnet."