can hardly stir some shreds. Whatever
things, whether animals or plants, are endowed with life need some sort of
nourishment, by which their strength not only persists but grows firmer and
more vigorous. But iron is not, as it seemed to Cardan and to Alexander
Aphrodiseus, attracted by the loadstone in order that it may feed on shreds
of it, nor does the loadstone take up vigour from iron filings as if by a
repast on victuals. Since Porta had doubts on this and resolved to test it,
he took a loadstone of ascertained weight, and buried it in iron filings of
not unknown weight; and when he had left it there for many months, he found
the stone of greater weight, the filings of less. But the difference was so
slender that he was even then doubtful as to the truth. What was done by
him does not convict the stone of voracity, nor does it show any nutrition;
for minute portions of the filings are easily scattered in handling. So
also a very fine dust is insensibly born on a loadstone in some very slight
quantity, by which something might have been added to the weight of the
loadstone but which is only a surface accretion and might even be wiped off
with no great difficulty. Some think that a weak and sluggish stone can
bring itself back into better condition, and that a very powerful one also
might present it with the highest powers. Do they acquire strength like
animals when {93} they eat and are sated? Is the medicine prepared by
addition or subtraction? Is there anything which can re-create this primary
form or bestow it anew? And, certes, nothing can do this which is not
magnetical. Magneticks can restore a certain soundness to magneticks (when
not incurable); some can even exalt them beyond their proper strength; but
when a body is at the height of perfection in its own nature, it is not
capable of being strengthened further. So that that imposture of
Paracelsus, who affirms that the force and virtue can be increased and
transmuted tenfold, turns out to be the more infamous. The method of
effecting this is as follows, viz., you make it semi-incandescent in a fire
of charcoal (that is, you heat it very hot), so that it does not become
red-hot, however, and immediately slake it, as much indeed as it can
imbibe, in oil of saffron of Mars, made from the best Carynthian steel. "In
this way you will be able so to strengthen a loadstone that it can draw a
nail out of a wall and accomplish many other like wonderful things, which
are