CHAP. XXVII.

*

The Centre of the Magnetick Virtues in the earth
is the centre of the earth; and in a terrella
is the centre of the stone.

ays of magnetick virtue spread out in every direction in an orbe; the centre of this orbe is not at the pole (as Baptista Porta reckons, Chap. 22), but in the centre of the stone and of the terrella. So also the centre of the earth is the centre of the magnetick motions of the earth; though magneticks are not borne directly toward the centre by magnetical motion, except when they are attracted by the true pole. For since the formal power of the stone and of the earth does not promote anything but the unity and conformity of disjoined bodies, it comes about that everywhere at an equal distance from the centre or from the circumference, just as it seems to attract perpendicularly at one place, so at another it is able even to dispose and to turn, provided the stone is not uneven in virtue. For if at the distance C from the pole D the stone is able to allure a versorium, * at an equally long interval above the æquator at A that stone can also direct and turn the versorium. So the very centre and middle of the terrella is the centre of its virtue, and from this to the circumference of the orbe (at equal intervals on every side) its magnetick virtues are emitted.