The Magnetic Kingdom of Nature

DEDICATION.

That poem by Claudian original: "Claudianus" is observed to be filled with swollen wit.

What heat infuses alternating
alliances into twin metals?
What discord joins hard minds?
The panting flint burns, and wounded,
senses its friendly matter,
and steel knows its gentle loves.

Is it not strange that stones themselves suffer such affections? That iron is soothed by its own enticements, and that flames reign in a rigid breast? Yet, truly, these things must rightly be considered as nothing when compared to...