learer proofs, in the discovery of secrets, and in the investigation of the hidden causes of things, being afforded by trustworthy experiments and by demonstrated arguments, than by the probable guesses and opinions of the ordinary professors of philosophy: so, therefore, that the noble substance of that great magnet, our common mother (the earth), hitherto quite unknown, and the conspicuous and exalted powers of this our globe, may be the better understood, we have proposed to begin with the common magnetick, stony, and iron material, and with magnetical bodies, and with the nearer parts of the earth which we can reach with our hands and perceive with our senses; then to proceed with demonstrable magnetick experiments; and so penetrate, for the first time, into the innermost parts of the earth. For after we had, in order finally to learn the true substance of the globe, seen and thoroughly examined many of those things which have been obtained from mountain heights or ocean depths, or from the profoundest caverns and from hidden mines: we applied much prolonged labour on investigating the magnetical forces; so wonderful indeed are they, compared with the forces of all other minerals, surpassing even the virtues of all other bodies about us. Nor have we found this our labour idle or unfruitful; since daily during our experimenting, new and unexpected properties came to light; and our Philosophy hath grown so much from the things diligently observed, that we have attempted to expound the interior parts of the terrene globe, and its native substance, upon magnetick principles; and to reveal to men the earth (our common mother), and to point it out as if with the finger, by real demonstrations and by experiments manifestly apparent to the senses. And as geometry ascends from sundry very small and very easy principles to the greatest and most difficult; by which the wit of man climbs above the firmament: so our magnetical doctrine and science first sets forth in convenient order the things which are less obscure; from these there come to light others that are more remarkable; and at length in due order there are opened the concealed and most secret things of the globe of the earth, and the causes are made known of those things which, either through the ignorance of the ancients or the neglect of moderns, have remained unrecognized and overlooked. But why should I, in so vast an Ocean of Books by which the minds of studious men are troubled and fatigued, through which very foolish productions the world and unreasoning men are intoxicated, and puffed up, rave and create literary broils, and while professing to be philosophers, physicians, mathematicians and astrologers, neglect and despise men of learning: why should I, I say, add aught further to this so-perturbed republick of letters, and expose this noble philosophy, which seems new and incredible by reason of so many things hitherto unrevealed, to be damned and torn to pieces by the maledictions of those who are either already sworn to the opinions of other men, or are foolish corruptors of good arts, learned idiots, grammatists, sophists, wranglers, and perverse little folk? But to you alone, true philosophizers, honest men, who seek knowledge not from books only but from things themselves, have I addressed these magnetical principles in this new sort of Philosophizing. But if any see not fit to assent to these self-same opinions and paradoxes, let them nevertheless mark the great array of experiments and discoveries (by which notably every philosophy flourisheth), which have been wrought out and demonstrated by us with many pains and vigils and expenses. In these rejoice, and employ them to better uses, if ye shall be able. I know how arduous it is to give freshness to old things, lustre to the antiquated, light to the dark, grace to the despised, credibility to the doubtful; so much the more by far is it difficult to win and establish some authority for things new and unheard-of, in the face of all the opinions of all men. Nor for that do we care, since philosophizing, as we deemed, is for the few. To our own discoveries and experiments we have affixed asterisks, larger and smaller, according to the importance and subtlety of the matter. Whoso desireth to make trial of the same experiments, let him handle the substances, not negligently and carelessly, but prudently, deftly, and in the proper way; nor let him (when a thing doth not succeed) ignorantly denounce our discoveries: for nothing hath been set down in these books which hath not been explored and many times performed and repeated amongst us. Many things in our reasonings and hypotheses will, perchance, at first sight, seem rather hard, when they are foreign to the iijcommonly received opinion; yet I doubt not but that hereafter they will yet obtain authority from the demonstrations themselves. Wherefore in magnetical science, they who have made most progress, trust most in and profit most by the hypotheses; nor will anything readily become certain to any one in a magnetical philosophy in which all or at least most points are not ascertained. This nature-knowledge is almost entirely new and unheard-of, save what few matters a very few writers have handed down concerning certain common magnetical powers. Wherefore we but seldom quote antient Greek authors in our support, because neither by using greek arguments nor greek words can the truth be demonstrated or elucidated either more precisely or more significantly. For our doctrine magnetical is at variance with most of their principles and dogmas. Nor have we brought to this work any pretence of eloquence or adornments of words; but this only have we done, that things difficult and unknown might be so handled by us, in such a form of speech, and in such words as are needed to be clearly understood: Sometimes therefore we use new and unusual words, not that by means of foolish veils of vocabularies we should cover over the facts with shades and mists (as Alchemists are wont to do) but that hidden things which have no name, never having been hitherto perceived, may be plainly and correctly enunciated. After describing our magnetical experiments and our information of the homogenick parts of the earth, we proceed to the general nature of the whole globe; wherein it is permitted us to philosophize freely and with the same liberty which the Egyptians, Greeks, and Latins formerly used in publishing their dogmas: whereof very many errors have been handed down in turn to later authors: and in which smatterers still persist, and wander as though in perpetual darkness. To those early forefathers of philosophy, Aristotle, Theophrastus, Ptolemy, Hippocrates, and Galen, let due honour be ever paid: for by them wisdom hath been diffused to posterity; but our age hath detected and brought to light very many facts which they, were they now alive, would gladly have accepted. Wherefore we also have not hesitated to expound in demonstrable hypotheses those things which we have discovered by long experience. Farewell.
Iron Will (The Shifting Tides Book 4) downloads torrent
But what the Chemists (as Geber, and others) call fixed earthy sulphur in iron is nothing else than the homogenic earth-substance concreted by its own humour, amalgamated with a double fluid: a metallick humour is inserted along with a small quantity of the substance of the earth not devoid of humour. Wherefore the common saying that in gold there is pure earth, but in iron mostly impure, is wrong; as though there were indeed such a thing as natural earth, and that the globe itself were (by some unknown process of refining) depurate. In iron, especially in the best iron, there is earth in its own nature true and genuine; in the other metals there is not so much earth as that in place of earth and precipitates there are consolidated and (so to speak) fixed salts, which are efflorescences of the globe, and which differ also greatly 22in firmness and consistency: In the mines their force rises up along with a twofold humour from the exhalations, they solidify in the underground spaces into metallic veins: so too they are also connate by virtue of their place and of the surrounding bodies, in natural matrices, and take on their specific forms. Of the various constitutions of loadstones and their diverse substances, colours, and virtues, mention has been made before: but, now having stated the cause and origin of metals, we have to examine ferruginous matter not as it is in the smelted metal, but as that from which the metal is refined. Quasi-pure iron is found of its proper colour and in its own lodes; still, not as it will presently be, nor as adapted for its various uses. It is sometimes dug up covered with white silex or with other stones. It is often the same in river sand, as in Noricum. A nearly pure ore of iron is now often dug up in Ireland, which the smiths, without the labours of furnaces, hammer out in the smithy into iron implements. In France iron is very commonly smelted out of a liver-coloured stone, in which are glittering scales; the same kind[71] without the scales is found in England, which also they use for craftsmen's ruddle[72]. In Sussex in England[73] is a rich dusky ore and also one of a pale ashen hue, both of which on being dried for a time, or kept in moderate fires, presently acquire a liver-colour; here also is found a dusky ore square-shaped with a black rind of greater hardness. An ore having the appearance of liver is often variously intermingled with other stones: as also with the perfect loadstone which yields the best of iron. There is also a rusty ore of iron, one of a leaden hue tending to black, one quite black, or black mixed with true cobalt: there is another sort mixed either with pyrites, or with sterile plumbago. One kind is also like jet, another like bloodstone. The emery used by armourers, and by glaziers for glass-cutting, called amongst the English Emerelstone, by the Germans Smeargel, is ferruginous; albeit iron is extracted from it with difficulty, yet it attracts the versorium. It is now and then found in deep iron and silver diggings. Thomas Erastus says he had heard from a certain learned man of iron ores, of the colour of iron, but quite soft and fatty, which can be smoothed with the fingers like butter, out of which excellent iron can be smelted: somewhat the same we have seen found in England, having the aspect of Spanish soap. Besides the numberless kinds of stony ores, iron is extracted from clay, from clayey earth, from ochre, from a rusty matter deposited from chalybeate waters; In England iron is copiously extracted in furnaces often from sandy and clayey stones which appear to contain iron not more than sand, marl, or any other clay soils contain it. Thus in Aristotle's book De Mirabilibus Auscultationibus[74], "There is said" (he states) "to be a peculiar formation of Chalybean and Misenian iron, for instance the sort collected from river gravel; some say 23that after being simply washed it is smelted in the furnace; others declare that it and the sediment which subsides after several washings are cast in and purified together by the fire; with the addition of the stone pyrimachus which is found there in abundance." Thus do numerous sorts of things contain in their various substances notably and abundantly this element of iron and earth. However, there are many stones, and very common ones, found in every soil, also earths, and various and mixed materials, which do not hold rich substances, but yet have their own iron elements, and yield them to skilfully-made fires, yet which are left aside by metallick men because they are less profitable; while other soils give some show of a ferruginous nature, yet (being very barren) are hardly ever smelted down into iron; and being neglected are not generally known. Manufactured irons differ very greatly amongst themselves. For one kind is tenacious in its nature, and this is the best; one is of medium quality: another is brittle, and this is the worst. Sometimes the iron, by reason of the excellency of the ore, is wrought into steel, as to-day in Noricum. From the finest iron, too, well wrought and purged from all dross, or by being plunged in water after heating, there issues what the Greeks call στόμωμα; the Latins acies; others aciarium, such as was at times called Syrian, Parthian, Noric, Comese, Spanish; elsewhere it is named from the water in which it is so often plunged, as at Como in Italy[75], Bambola and Tarazona in Spain. Acies fetches a much larger price than mere iron. And owing to its superiority it better accords with the loadstone, from which more powerful quality it is often smelted, and it acquires the virtues from it more quickly, retains them longer at their full, and in the best condition for magnetical experiments. After iron has been smelted in the first furnaces, it is afterward wrought by various arts in large worksteads or mills, the metal acquiring consistency when hammered with ponderous blows, and throwing off the dross. After the first smelting it is rather brittle and by no means perfect. Wherefore with us (English) when the larger military guns are cast, they purify the metal from dross more fully, so that they may be stronger to withstand the force of the firing; and they do this by making it pass again (in a fluid state) through a chink, by which process it sheds its recremental matter. Smiths render iron sheets tougher with certain liquids, and by blows of the hammer, and from them make shields and breastplates that defy the blows of battle-axes. Iron becomes harder through skill and proper tempering, but also by skill turns out in a softer condition and as pliable as lead. It is made hard by the action of certain waters into which while glowing it is plunged, as at Bambola and Tarazona in Spain: It grows soft again, either by the effect of fire alone, when without hammering and without water, it is left to cool by itself; or by that of grease into which it is plunged; or 24(that it may the better serve for various trades) it is tempered variously by being skilfully besmeared. Baptista Porta expounds this art in book 13 of his Magia Naturalis. Thus this ferric and telluric nature is included and taken up in various bodies of stones, ores, and earths; so too it differs in aspect, in form, and in efficiency. Art smelts it by various processes, improves it, and turns it, above all material substances, to the service of man in trades and appliances without end. One kind of iron is adapted for breastplates, another serves as a defence against shot, another protects against swords and curved blades (commonly called scimitars), another is used for making swords, another for horseshoes. From iron are made nails, hinges, bolts, saws, keys, grids, doors, folding-doors, spades, rods, pitchforks, hooks, barbs, tridents, pots, tripods, anvils, hammers, wedges, chains, hand-cuffs, fetters, hoes, mattocks, sickles, baskets, shovels, harrows, planes, rakes, ploughshares, forks, pans, dishes, ladles, spoons, spits, knives, daggers, swords, axes, darts, javelins, lances, spears, anchors, and much ship's gear. Besides these, balls, darts, pikes, breastplates, helmets, cuirasses, horseshoes, greaves, wire, strings of musical instruments, chairs, portcullises, bows, catapults, and (pests of human kind) cannon, muskets, and cannon-balls, with endless instruments unknown to the Latins: which things I have rehearsed in order that it may be understood how great is the use of iron, which surpasses a hundred times that of all the other metals; and is day by day being wrought by metal-workers whose stithies are found in almost every village. For this is the foremost of metals, subserving many and the greatest needs of man, and abounds in the earth above all other metals, and is predominant. Wherefore those Chemists are fools[76] who think that nature's will is to perfect all metals into gold; she might as well be making ready to change all stones to diamonds, since diamond surpasses all in splendour and hardness, because gold excels in splendour, gravity, and density, being invincible against all deterioration. Iron as dug up is therefore, like iron that has been smelted, a metal, differing a little indeed from the primary homogenic terrestrial body, owing to the metallick humour it has imbibed; yet not so alien as that it will not, after the manner of refined matter, admit largely of the magnetick forces, and may be associated with that prepotent form belonging to the earth, and yield to it a due submission. 2ff7e9595c
Commentaires