he observed also that an ordinary iron bar, if suspended
horizontally by a thread, assumes invariably a north and south
direction. These, with many other experiments of a similar
nature, convinced him that the earth "is a magnet and a
loadstone," which he says is a "new and till now unheard-of view
of the earth."

Fully to appreciate Gilbert's revolutionary views concerning the
earth as a magnet, it should be remembered that numberless
theories to explain the action of the electric needle had been
advanced. Columbus and Paracelsus, for example, believed that the
magnet was attracted by some point in the heavens, such as a
magnetic star. Gilbert himself tells of some of the beliefs that
had been held by his predecessors, many of whom he declares
"wilfully falsify." One of his first steps was to refute by
experiment such assertions as that of Cardan, that "a wound by a
magnetized needle was painless"; and also the assertion of
Fracastoni that loadstone attracts silver; or that of Scalinger,
that the diamond will attract iron; and the statement of
Matthiolus that "iron rubbed with garlic is no longer attracted
to the loadstone."

Gilbert made extensive experiments to explain the dipping of the
needle, which had been first noticed by William Norman. His
deduction as to this phenomenon led him to believe that this was
also explained by the magnetic attraction of the earth, and to
predict where the vertical dip would be found. These deductions
seem the more wonderful because at the time he made them the dip
had just been discovered, and had not been studied except at
London. His theory of the dip was, therefore, a scientific