stone in this passage, he has in a preceding passage (sec. 4) apparently designated it as λίθος 'Ηράκλεια ("Heraclean stone"). This seems to have been the common early Greek name for the lodestone, since Plato in one place19* specifically states that this was what most people called it, and in two other places195 he uses this as the name of the lodestone without special comment. However, the lodestone was frequently mentioned without the use of a special name, as in the present passage and in the passage from Aristotle that has just been quoted. It was sometimes described simply as "the stone," without any explanation that it was the one that attracted iron. For example, Theophrastus so designated it in the following passage in his History of Plants, where he is referring to certain plants that affect lifeless objects: τάς δε και ελκειι>, ώσπςρ η λίθος καϊ το ήλβκτρον.19" (And some also have the power of attraction, like the stone [sc. the lodestone] and amber.)
Since the Greek world was so small and a very small area of the earth had been explored for minerals at that time, this statement of Theophrastus about the scarcity of the lodestone is undoubtedly correct for his day. Even at the present time specimens of magnetite that are actively magnetic are not very common in spite of the abundance of the mineral itself.
Although the statement in the present passage is a very early allusion to the phenomenon of magnetism, it is by no means the earliest that is known. As was indicated before, Thales of Miletus was probably the first to allude to this phenomenon, but the earliest direct statements about the lodestone and its special property are those of Plato. The passages in Plato's Ion constitute a particularly vivid description of the way the lodestone attracts iron. Though Plato in the Timaeus mentions amber and the lodestone together because of their attractive power, he does not suggest any particular connection between the properties of the two substances. Theophrastus is apparently the first to suggest explicitly that the lodestone should be classified with substances, such as amber, which exhibit the property of electrostatic attraction. Thus he may perhaps be considered the first to hint at a
194 Ion, 533D.
1957o«, 535E and Timaeus, 8oC.
196IX, 18, 2.
