The Magnetic Kingdom of Nature

DEDICATION

That playful verse of Claudian, filled with a swelling spirit, comes to my mind:

What heat pours mutual bonds into these twin metals?
What discord joins these hard minds?
The panting flint original: "silex," here referring to the magnet or lodestone burns, and, wounded, senses its beloved material,
and the Steel original: "Chalybs," a Greek-derived term for high-quality iron or steel recognizes its peaceful loves.

Is it not a wonder that the stones themselves suffer their own passions? Is it not strange that iron is softened by its own charms, and that flames reign within a rigid breast? But in truth, these things ought rightly to be considered as nothing, if compared with the powerful