Pliny wrote of the alleged antipathy between diamond and goat's blood. The passage as quoted from the English version of Pliny's Natural Historie of the World, translated by Philemon Holland (London, 1601, p. 610, chap, iv.), runs: "But I would gladly know whose invention this might be to soake the Diamond in Goats bloud, whose head devised it first, or rather by what chance was it found out and knowne? What conjecture should lead a man to make an experiment of such a singular and admirable secret, especially in a goat, the filthiest beast ... in the whole world? Certes I must ascribe both this invention and all such like to the might and beneficence together of the divine powers: neither are we to argue and reason how and why Nature hath done this or that? Sufficient is it that her will was so, and thus she would have it."
[6] Page 2, line 22. Page 2, line 22. Machometis sacellum. Gilbert credits Matthiolus (the well-known herbalist and commentator on Dioscorides) with producing the fable as to Mahomet's coffin being suspended in the air by a magnet. Sir Richard Burton, in his famous pilgrimage to El Medïnah in 1855, effectually disposed of this myth. The reputed sarcophagus rests simply on bricks on the floor. But it had long been known that aerial suspension, even of the lightest iron object, in the air, without contact above or below, was impossible by any magnetic agency.
In Barlowe's Magneticall Aduertisements (London, 1616, p. 45) is the following: "As for the Turkes Mahomet, hanging in the ayer with his yron chest it is a most grosse untruth, and utterly impossible it is for any thing to hange in the ayer by any magneticall power, but that either it must touch the stone it selfe, or else some intermediate body, that hindreth it from comming to the stone (like as before I haue shewed) or else some stay below to keepe it from ascending, as some small wier that may scantly bee seene or perceived."
[7] Page 2, line 26. Page 2, line 26. Arsinoes templum.—The account in Pliny of the magnetic suspension of the statue of Arsinoe in the temple built by Chinocrates is given as follows in the English version (London, 1601) of Philemon Holland (p. 515): "And here I cannot chuse but acquaint you with the singular invention of that great architect and master deviser, of Alexandria in Ægypt Dinocrates, who began to make the arched roufe of the temple of Arsinoe all of Magnet or this Loadstone, to the end, that within that temple the statue of the said princesse made of yron, might seeme to hang in the aire by nothing. But prevented he was by death
before hee could finish his worke, like as king Ptolomæe also, who ordained that temple to be built in the honour of the said Arsinoe his sister."
There are a number of similar myths in Ausonius, Claudian, and Cassiodorus, and in the writings of later ecclesiastical historians, such as Rusinus and Prosper Aquitanus. The very meagre accounts they have left, and the scattered references to the reputed magical powers of the loadstone, suggest that there existed amongst the primitive religions of mankind a magnet-worship, of which these records are traces.
[8] Page 2, line 37. Page 2, line 41. Brasevolus [or Brasavola].—The list of authorities here cited consists mostly of well-known mediæval writers on materia medica or on minerals: the last on the list, Hannibal Rosetius Calaber, has not been identified.
The following are the references in the order named by Gilbert:
Antonio Musa Brasavola. Examen omnium simplicium medicamentorum, Section 447 (Lugdun., 1537).
Joannes Baptista Montanus. Metaphrasis summaria eorum quæ ad medicamentorum doctrinà attinet (Augustæ Rheticæ, 1551).