[49] Page 9, line 22. Page 9, line 30. Differentiæ priscis ex colore.—Pliny's account of the loadstones of different colours which came from different regions is mainly taken from Sotacus. The white magnet, which was friable, like pumice, and which did not draw iron, was probably simply magnesia. The blue loadstones were the best. See p. 587 of Holland's translation of Pliny, London, 1601. St. Isidore (Originum seu Etymologiarum, lib. xvi., cap. 4) says: "Omnis autem magnes tanta melior est, quanto [magis] cæruleus est."
[50] Page 10, line 29. Page 10, line 42. Suarcebergo ... Snebergum & Annæbergum.—In the Stettin editions of 1628 and 1633 these are spelled Swarcebergs ... Schnebergum & Annebergum. The Cordus given as authority for these localities is Valerius Cordus, the commentator on Dioscorides.
[51] Page 11, line 3. Page 11, line 12. Adriani Gilberti viri nobilis.—"Adrian Gylbert of Sandridge in the Countie of Devon, Gentleman" is the description of the person to whom Queen Elizabeth granted a patent for the discovery of a North-West passage to China. See Hakluyt's Voyages, vol. iii., p. 96.
[52] Page 11, line 17. Page 11, line 28. Dicitur a Græcis ηρακλιος.—The discussion of the names of the magnet in different languages by Gilbert in this place is far from complete. He gives little more than is to be found in Pliny. For more complete discussions the reader is referred to Buttmann, Bemerkungen über die Benennungen einiger Mineralien bei den Alten, vorzüglich des Magnetes und des Basaltes (Musæum der Alterthumswissenschaft, Bd. II., pp. 5-52, and 102-104, 1808); G. Fournier, Hydrographie (livre xi., chap. I, 1643); Ulisse Aldrovandi, Musæum Metallicum (Bononiæ, 1648, lib. iv., cap. 2, p. 554); Klaproth, Lettre à M. le Baron A. de Humboldt, sur l'invention de la Boussole, Paris, 1834; T. S. Davies, The History of Magnetical Discovery (Thomson's British Annual, 1837, pp. 250-257); Th. Henri Martin, De l'Aimant, de ses noms divers et de ses variétés suivant les Anciens (Mémoires présentés par divers savants a l'Academie des Inscriptions et Belles-lettres, Ire série, t. vi., Ire partie, 1861); G. A. Palm, Der Magnet in Alterthum (Programm des k. württembergischen Seminars Maulbronn, Stuttgart,
1867). Of these works, those of Klaproth and of Martin are by far the most important. Klaproth states that in modern Greek, in addition to the name μαγνῆτις, the magnet also has the names ἀδάμας and καλαμίτα. The former of these, in various forms, adamas, adamant, aimant, yman, and piedramon, has gone into many languages. Originally the word ἀδάμας (the unconquered) was applied by the Greeks to the hardest of the metals with which they were acquainted, that is to say, to hard-tempered iron or steel, and it was subsequently because of its root-signification also given by them to the diamond for the same reason; it was even given to the henbane because of the deadly properties of that plant. In the writings of the middle ages, in St. Augustine, St. Isidore, Marbodeus, and even in Pliny, we find some confusion between the two uses of adamas to denote the loadstone as well as the diamond. Certainly the word adamas, without ceasing to be applied to the diamond, also designated the loadstone. At the same time (says Martin) the word magnes was preserved, as Pliny records, to designate a loadstone of lesser strength than the adamas. On the other hand, the word diamas, or deamans, had already in the thirteenth century been introduced into Latin to signify the diamond as distinguisht from the magnet. Adamas was rendered aymant in the romance version of the poem of Marbodeus on stones (see Beckmann's variorum edition of 1799, p. 102), and in this form it was for a time used to denote both the magnet and the diamond. Then it gradually became restricted in use to the stone that attracts iron.
Some confusion has also arisen with respect to the Hebrew name of the magnet. Sir W. Snow Harris makes the following statement (Magnetism, p. 5): "In the Talmud it [the loadstone] is termed achzhàb'th, the stone which attracts; and in their ancient prayers it has the European name magnēs." On this point Dr. A. Löwy has furnisht the following notes. The loadstone is termed in one of the Talmudical sections and in the Midrash, Eben Shoebeth (lapis attrahens). This would of course be written
אבן שואבת
. Omitting the
ו
which marks the participial construction, the words would stand thus: