On the Magnet

A decorative headpiece features a central royal coat of arms flanked by two winged figures (putti), with a lion on the left and a dragon on the right, all framed by ornate scrollwork.

A large, ornate drop-cap letter 'C' features floral and foliate scrollwork.Since in discovering hidden things and in investigating the concealed causes of phenomena, reasons derived from certain experiments and demonstrated arguments are stronger than those drawn from probable conjectures and the commonly held dogmas of philosophers: therefore, so that the illustrious substance of the great magnet, the common mother (the Earth), which is still entirely unknown, and the remarkable and eminent powers of this globe may be better understood, we have resolved to begin from the common magnetic, stony, and iron matter, and from magnetic bodies and the parts of the Earth more immediate to us, which we may handle with our hands and perceive with our own senses; to proceed through manifest magnetic experiments; and to first penetrate into the innermost parts of the Earth. For after many things had been seen and examined by us—those unearthed from high mountains, from the depths of the seas, or from deep caverns and hidden ores—so that we might finally know the truer substance of the Earth, we applied long and much care to investigating the powers of the magnet (which are indeed to be admired, and are far more potent than the powers of all other bodies known to us when compared with the virtues of all other minerals). And we have not found this labor of ours to be idle or unfruitful; for as new and unheard-of properties shone forth to us through daily experimentation, philosophy grew so much from these things carefully observed that we have undertaken to explain the interior of the terrestrial globe and its genuine substance by magnetic principles, and to point out the Earth (the common mother) to men, as if by pointing a finger, through true demonstrations and experiments that are clearly apparent to the senses.