CHAP. X.
*
Iron ore has poles, and acquires them, and settles
itself toward the poles of the universe.
eplorable is man's ignorance in natural
science, and modern philosophers, like those who dream in darkness, need to be aroused, and taught the uses of things and
how to deal with them, and to be induced to leave the learning sought at leisure from books alone, and that is supported
only by unrealities of arguments and by conjectures. For the knowledge of iron (than which nothing is in more common
use), and that of many more substances around us, remains unlearned; iron, a rich ore of which, placed in a vessel upon
water, by an innate property of its own directs itself, just like the loadstone, North and South, at which points it
rests, and to which, if it be turned aside, it reverts by its own inherent vigour. But many ores, less perfect in their
nature, which yet contain amid stone or earthy substances plenty of iron, have no such motion; but when prepared by
skilful treatment in the fires, as shown in the foregoing chapter, they acquire a polar vigour (which we call
verticity84); and not only the iron ores in request by miners, but even earth
merely charged with ferruginous matter, and many rocks, do in like manner tend and lean toward those portions of the
heavens, or more truly of the earth, if they be skilfully placed, until they reach the desired location, in which they
eagerly repose.