[238] Page 200, line 12. Page 200, line 11. subintelligūtur.—This is printed subintelligitur, and is altered in ink in all copies of the folio edition. The editions of 1628 and 1633 read subintelliguntur. Similarly in line 14 the word ducit has had a small r added in ink, making it read ducitur, as also the other editions.
[239] Page 203. This figure of the experiment with the simple dipping needle suspended in water in a goblet is due to Robert Norman. In his Newe Attractiue (London, 1581, chap. vi.) he thus describes it:
"Then you shall take a deepe Glasse, Bowle, Cuppe, or other vessell, and fill it with fayre water, setting it in some place where it may rest quiet, and out of the winde. This done, cut the Corke circumspectly, by little and little, untill the wyre with the Corke be so fitted, that it may remain under the superficies of the water two or three inches, both ends of the wyer lying levell with the superficies of the water, without ascending or descending, like to the beame of a payre of ballance beeing equalie poysed at both ends.
"Then take out of the same the wyer without mooving the Corke, and touch it with the Stone, the one end with the South of the Stone, and the other end with the North, and then set it againe in the water, and you shall see it presentlie turne it selfe upon his owne Center, shewing the aforesay'd Declining propertie, without descending to the bottome, as by reason it should, if there were any Attraction downewards, the lower part of the water being neerer that point, then the superficies thereof."
[240] Page 212, line 7. Page 212, line 8. ex altera parte.—The sense seems to require et altera parte, but all editions read ex.
[241] Page 213, line 1. Page 213, line 2. The passage here quoted from Dominicus Maria Ferrariensis, otherwise known as the astronomer Novara, does not occur in any known writing of that famous man. It is, however, quoted as being by Novara in at least three other writings of the same epoch. See the Tabulæ secvndorum mobilium coelestium of Maginus (Venet., 1585, p. 29, line 19 to p. 30, line 11); the Eratosthenes Batavvs of Willebrord Snell (Lugd. Batav., 1617, pp. 40-42); and the Almagesti novi (Pars Posterior) of Riccioli (Bonon., 1651, p. 348). The original document appears to have perisht. See a notice by M. Curtze in Boncompagni's Bullettino di Bibliografia, T. iv., April, 1871.
[242] Page 214, line 26. Page 214, line 31. Philolaus Pythagoricus.
"Philolaüs a le premier dit que la terre se meut en cercle; d'autres disent que c'est Nicétas de Syracuse."
"Les uns prétendent que le terre est immobile; mais Philolaüs le pythagoricien dit qu'elle se meut circulairement autour du feu (central) et suivant un cercle oblique, comme le soleil et la lune."—(Chaignet, Pythagore et la Philosophie pythagoricienne, Paris, 1873.)
It appears that the first of these dicta is taken from Diogenes Laërt., viii. 85; and the second from Plutarch, Placit. Philos., III. 7. The latter
passage may be compared with Aristotle, De Coelo, II. 13, who, referring to the followers of Pythagoras, says: "They say that the middle is fire, that the earth is a star, and that it is moved circularly about this centre; and that by this movement it produces day and night."
[243] Page 214, line 34. Page 214, line 42. Copernicus.—His work is De revolutionibus orbium coelestium, libri vi. (Basil., 1566).