On the lodestone and magnetic bodies and on the great magnet the earth : a new physiology demonstrated with many arguments and experiments / William Gilbert of Colchester, physician of London ... a translation by P. Fleury Mottelay.

  • Gilbert, William, 1544-1603.
Date:
1893
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: On the lodestone and magnetic bodies and on the great magnet the earth : a new physiology demonstrated with many arguments and experiments / William Gilbert of Colchester, physician of London ... a translation by P. Fleury Mottelay. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by Royal College of Physicians, London. The original may be consulted at Royal College of Physicians, London.

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    divers observations concerning the loadstone, quarto, Lon- don 1616, and reads as follows: To the Worship/till my good friend, Mr. William Barlowe at Easton by Winchester. Recommendations with many thanks for your paines and courtesies, for your diligence and enquiring, and finding diuers good secrets, I pray proceede with double capping your load-stone you speake of, I shall bee glad to see you, as you write, as any man, I will haue any leisure, if it were a moneth, to conferre with you, you have shewed mee more—and brought more light than any man hath done. Sir, I will commend you to my L. of Effingham, there is heere a wise learned man, a Secretary of Venice, he came sent by that State, and was honourably received by her Majesty, he brought me a lattin letter from a Gentle-man of Venice that is very well learned, whose name is Iohannes Franciscus Sagredus, he is a great Magneticall man, and writeth that hee hath conferred with diuers learned men of Venice and with the Readers of Padua, and re- porteth wonderfull liking of my booke, you shall haue a coppy of the letter: Sir, I propose to adioyne an appendix of six or eight sheets of paper to my booke after a while, I am in hand with it of some new in- uentions, and I would haue some of your experiments, in your name and inuention put into it, if you please, that you may be knowen for an augmenter of that art. So for this time in haste I take my leaue the xiiyth of February. Your very louing friend, W. Gilbert. His intention to print the short appendix was never car- ried into effect. Professor Silvanus P. Thompson states ( Gilbert of Col- chester . . . , London 1891, page 40) that with the exception of a single doubtful inscription, 1 ex dono auctoris,' in a single copy of De Magnete, not a line of his [Gilbert's] handwrit- ing is known to exist, unless his hand wrote the signature ' Ye President and Societie' at the end of a Petition, preserved amongst the manuscripts in the British Museum, addressed by the Royal College of Physicians in 1596 to the Lords of the Privy Council, complaining of the exactions of the Lord Mayor and Aldermen of London. It is pretty certain that