trailing plant to make it attract the wild cotton; and, perhaps, a
prehistoric tribesman of the Baltic or the plains of Sicily found in the
yellow stone he had polished the mysterious power of collecting dust. A
Greek legend tells us that the lodestone was discovered by Magnes, a
shepherd who found his crook attracted by the rock.

However this may be, we are told that Thales of Miletus attributed the
attractive properties of the amber and the lodestone to a soul within
them. The name Electricity is derived from ELEKTRON, the Greek for
amber, and Magnetism from Magnes, the name of the shepherd, or, more
likely, from the city of Magnesia, in Lydia, where the stone occurred.

These properties of amber and lodestone appear to have been widely
known. The Persian name for amber is KAHRUBA, attractor of straws, and
that for lodestone AHANG-RUBA attractor of iron. In the old Persian
romance, THE LOVES OF MAJNOON AND LEILA, the lover sings--

'She was as amber, and I but as straw:
She touched me, and I shall ever cling to her.'

The Chinese philosopher, Kuopho, who flourished in the fourth century,
writes that, 'the attraction of a magnet for iron is like that of amber
for the smallest grain of mustard seed. It is like a breath of wind
which mysteriously penetrates through both, and communicates itself with
the speed of an arrow.' [Lodestone was probably known in China before
the Christian era.] Other electrical effects were also observed by the
ancients. Classical writers, as Homer, Caesar, and Plutarch, speak of
flames on the points of javelins and the tips of masts. They regarded
them as manifestations of the Deity, as did the soldiers of the Mahdi
lately in the Soudan. It is recorded of Servius Tullus, the sixth king