On the Magnet

p.

the Boreal: & how it is dis

of the still and unruffled water, will at once put itself in motion along with the vessel that carries it, and revolve circularly, until its austral pole points to the north, and its boreal pole to the south. For it reverts from the contrary position to the poles: and although by the first too-vehement impulse it over-passes the poles; yet after returning again and again, it rests at length at the poles, or at the meridian (unless because of local reasons it is diverted some little from those points, or from the meridional line, by some sort of variation66, the cause of which we will hereafter state). However often you move it away from its place, so often by virtue of nature's noble dower does it seek again those sure and determined goals; and this is so, not only if the poles have been disposed in the vessel evenly with the plane of the horizon, but also in the case of one pole, whether austral or boreal, being raised in the vessel ten, or twenty, or thirty, or fifty or eighty degrees, above the plane of the horizon, or lowered beneath it: Still you shall see the boreal part of the stone seek the south, and the austral part seek the north; So much so that if the pole of the st