[73] Page 22, line 19. Page 22, line 20. In Sussexia Angliæ.—In Camden's Britannia (1580) we read concerning the iron industry in the villages in Sussex: "They are full of iron mines in sundry places, where, for the making and founding thereof, there be furnaces on every side; and a huge deal of wood is yearly burnt. The heavy forge-hammers, worked by water-power, stored in hammer-ponds, ceaselessly beating upon the iron, fill the neighbourhood round about, day and night, with continual noise."
[74] Page 23, line 1. Page 22, line 44. in libro Aristotelis de admirandis narrationibus.—The reference is to the work usually known as the De Mirabilibus Auscultationibus, Cap. XLVIII.: "Fertur autem peculiarissima generatio esse ferri Chalybici Amisenique, ut quod ex sabulo quod a fluviis defertur, ut perhibent certe, conflatur. Alii simpliciter lotum in fornace excoqui, alii vero, quod ex lotura subsedit, frequentius lotum comburi tradunt adjecto simul et pyrimacho dicto lapide, qui in ista regio plurimus reperiri fertur." (Ed. Didot, vol. ii., p. 87.) According to Georgius Agricola, the stone pyrimachus is simply iron pyrites.
[75] Page 23, line 22. Page 23, line 23. vt in Italia Comi, &c.—This is mostly taken from Pliny. Compare the following passage from Philemon Holland's translation (1601), p. 514:
"But the most varietie of yron commeth by the meanes of the water, wherein the yron red-hot is eftsoones dipped and quenched for to be hardened. And verely, water only which in some place is better, in other worse, is that which hath ennobled many places for the excellent yron that commeth from them, as namely, Bilbilis in Spaine, and Tarassio, Comus also in Italie; for none of these places have any yron mines of their owne, and yet there is no talke but of the yron and steele that commeth from thence."
Bilbilis is Bambola, and Tariassona the Tarazona of modern Spain.
[76] Page 24, line 28. Page 24, line 27. Quare vani sunt illi Chemici.—Gilbert had no faith in the alchemists. On pp. [19] and [21] he had poked fun at them for declaring the metals to be constituted of sulphur and quicksilver, and for pronouncing the fixed earth in iron to be sulphur. On p. [20] he had denied their proposition that the differences between silver, gold, and copper could arise from proportions of their constituent materials; and he likewise denounced unsparingly the supposed relation between the seven metals and the seven planets. He now denounces the vain dreams of turning all metals into gold, and all stones into diamonds. Later he rejects as absurd the magnetic curing of wounds. His detachment from the pseudo-science of his age was unique if not complete.
[77] Page 25, line 15. Page 25, line 16. Petro-coriis, & Cabis Biturgibus.—The Petro-corii were a tribe in the neighbourhood of Perigord; the Cubi Biturges another in that of Bourges.
[78] Page 25, line 21. Page 25, line 23. Pliny's account, as translated by P. Holland (ed. 1601, p. 515), runs thus:
"Of all mines that be, the veine of this mettall is largest, and spreadeth it selfe into most lengths every way: as we may see in that part of Biscay that coasteth along the sea, and upon which the Ocean beateth: where there
is a craggie mountaine very steep and high, which standeth all upon a mine or veine of yron. A wonderfull thing, and in manner incredible, howbeit, most true, according as I have shewed already in my Cosmographie, as touching the circuit of the Ocean."