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Magnes, Loadstone

Lyncurium, Jacinth Page of 384 Magnes, Loadstone Text size:minus plus Restore normal size   Mail page  Print this page
MAGNES.
169
The Loadstone, or Magnetic Iron-ore, is a compound of Protoxide and Peroxide of Iron. It is black, heavy, and compact; sufficiently hard to take a good polish, which gives the surface a metallic lustre, like iron polished with black lead. Pliny (xxxvi. 25), on the authority of Nicander, states that the Magnet took its name from the herdsman who first discovered it in Mount Ida, by its attracting the nails in his soles, and the ferule of his staff, as he walked over the bed. Pliny notices the great abundance of it in Spain ; in fact, the richest iron-mines at present worked, those of Elba and Sweden, consist entirely of Magnetic ore.
Sotacus divided it into five species : the Ethiopian, the best, and sold for its weight in silver ; the second, found in Magnesia of Macedonia ; the third, in Hyettus of Boeotia, redder in appearance than the second ; the fourth, in Alexandria Troas ; the fifth, in Magnesia of Asia, which was the worst of all, being white and like a pumice-stone.* That of the Troas was black and but feebly attractive, and was therefore considered the female of the species. It had been observed that the blacker the colour (i. e. possessing
* Which two qualities are a sufficient proof that this mineral was no Magnet at all, but merely had been confounded with it by impractical describers in virtue of the similarity of the name. It was a stone of which Theophrastus (quoted below) has taken notice.
Lyncurium, Jacinth Page of 384 Magnes, Loadstone
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