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86
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DE NATURA FOSSILIUM
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composed of lodestone is such that it holds iron, of the other composed of theamedes, that it repels iron.1
Can we then believe that if we had the nails pulled from our shoes on
one mountain we could go to the other and have them put back? Even
today stones are found composed in part of lodestone, in part of theamedes. These
two minerals do not differ in color although they have different
properties. Albertus Magnus writes that during his lifetime he found
such a mineral, a portion of which would attract iron, another portion
repel it. Since I have no intent of writing about mythical stones I
will not discuss those said to be attracted by iron nor those that are
supposed to attract human flesh. I will omit pantarbe which Philostratus describes as attracting other stones as well as amphitane which Pliny writes is also known as chrysocolla. The
latter is said to have an appearance similar to gold and to be found in
a cubic form in a part of India where the ants dig up gold. It is
affirmed to have the same properties as lodestone except that it also
attracts gold.2
Related stones are often found in iron mines, especially hematite (haematites) and schistos.3 These
are produced from the same material and differ only in form and certain
other properties. Hematite is so-called either because it is the color
of blood, as Galen rightly believes, following Theophrastus; because it
stops the flow of blood; or because, having been ground on a wet
whetstone, it imitates a bloody juice.4 Schistos is
so-named not because it has been split nor because it can always be
split with ease for it cannot, but, because it is cleavable in a
certain manner. Due to the mutual arrangement of its parts it has
formed like wood in straight lines and is similar to sal ammoniac.
These
stones are found in many parts of Germany, in Saxony, in the Hildesheim
forest on the farther side of Mt. Maurice in a wide and oblique vein;
four miles from Goslar on the road to a mountain the miners call Silver
Birch but which we will call Goslar. Schistos is found in
several places in the Harz forest, especially near Harzgerode. It
occurs in the Hass Berg which is in the district of the Chatti in the
mountains of Gladenbach, also in Misena in the mine of the Hermunduri
called Goldekrona, i.e., Gold Crown. It is abundant about five miles
from the town of Marien-burg. Both minerals occur in the iron mines of
Bohemia near the town of Lessa. They are also found in the silver mines
of Joachimsthal, although always in small amounts, and in the iron
mines of Noricum south of the Danube which are two miles from Amberg on
the road to the west toward
1 This myth probably developed from the fact that a piece of lodestone shows polarity.
2 This probably refers to pyrite. Although it will not attract gold it is often auriferous, the possible basis of the myth.
3 Schistos is
a synonym for goethite, as used by Agricola, but due to incomplete
knowledge of the character of the various hydrous iron oxides he has
included some limonite as well as hematite and other minerals in this
group.
4 The name comes from the Greek αίματίτης, blood-like.
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