phtha is said to attract fire. I have said above that {110}
inanimate natural bodies do not attract, and are not attracted by, others
on the earth, excepting magnetically or electrically. Wherefore it is not
true that there are magnets which attract gold or other metals; because a
magnetick substance draws nothing but magnetick substances. Though
Fracastorio says that he has shown a magnet drawing silver; if this were
true, it must have happened on account of iron skilfully mixed with that
silver or concealed in it, or else because nature (as she does sometimes,
but rarely) had mixed iron with the silver; iron indeed is rarely mixed
with silver by nature; silver with iron very rarely or never. Iron is mixed
with silver by forgers of false coin or from the avarice of princes in the
coining of money, as was the case with the denarius of Antony[189],
provided that Pliny is recording a true incident. So Cardan (perhaps
deceived by others) says that there is a certain kind of loadstone which
draws silver; he adds a most foolish test of this: "If therefore" (he says)
"a slender rod of silver be steeped in that in which a versatory needle has
stood, it will turn toward silver (especially toward a large quantity)
although it be buried; by this means anyone will be able easily to dig up
concealed treasures." He adds that "it should be very good stone, such as
he has not yet seen." Nor indeed will either he or anyone else ever see
such a stone or such an experiment. Cardan brings forward an attraction of
flesh, wrongly so named and very dissimilar from that of the loadstone; for
his _magnes creagus_ or flesh-magnet, from the experiment that it sticks to
the lips, must be hooted out from the assembly of loadstones, or by all
means from the family of things attractive. Lemnian earth, ruddle, and very
many minerals do this, and yet they are fatuously said to attract. He will
have it that there is another loadstone, as it were, a third species, into
which, if a needle is driven and afterwards stuck into the body, it is not
felt. But what has attraction to do with stupefaction, or stupor with a
Philosopher's intellect, when he is discoursing about attraction? There are
many stones, both found in nature and made by art, which have the power of
stupefying. Sulphur flame is said by some to attract, because it consumes
certain metals by its power of penetration. So white naphtha attracts
flame, because it gives off and exhales an inflammable