"Magnes lapis optimus est, qui ferrum facile trahit, colore ad cœruleum uergente, densus, nec admodum gravis. Datur cum aqua mulsa, trium obolorum pondere, ut crassos humores eliciat. Sunt qui magnetem crematū pro hæmatite vendant...."
In the Scholia of Joannes Lonicerus upon Dioscorides In Dioscoridæ
Anazarbei de re medica libros a Virgilio Marcello versos, Scholia nova, Ioanne Lonicero autore (Marburgi, 1543, p. 77), occurs the following:
"De recremento ferri. Cap. XLIX.
"Σκωρία σιδήρου. scoria vel recrementum ferri. Quæ per ignem à ferro et cupro sordes separantur ac reijciuntur, et ab aliis metallis σκωρία uocantur. Omnis scoria, maxime uero ferri exiccat. Acerrimo aceto macerauit Galenus ferri scoriam, ac deinde excocto, pharmacum efficax confecit ad purulentas quæ multo tempore uexatæ erant, aures, admirando spectantium effectu. Ardenti scoria uel recrementum ἕλκυσμα, inquit Galenus."
See also the Enarrationes eruditissimæ of Amatus Lusitanus (Venet., 1597), pp. 482 and 507, upon iron and the loadstone.
[98] Page 36, line 27. Page 36, line 29. eijcitur for ejicitur.
[99] Page 37, line 18. Page 37, line 22. ut Cardanus philosophatur.—Cardan's nonsense about the magnet feeding on iron is to be found in De Subtilitate, lib. vii. (Basil., 1611, p. 381).
[100] Page 38, line 4. Page 38, line 7. ferramenta ... in usum navigantium.—Compare Marke Ridley's A Short Treatise of Magneticall Bodies and Motions (Lond., 1613), p. a2 in the Preface Magneticall, where he speaks of the "iron-workes" used in building ships. The phraseology of Marke Ridley throws much light on the Latin terms used by Gilbert.
[101] Page 38, line 36. Page 38, line 42. vruntur; changed in ink to vrantur in the folio of 1600; but uruntur appears in the editions of 1628 and 1633.