t and beneficence together
of the divine powers: neither are we to argue and reason how and why Nature
hath done this or that? Sufficient is it that her will was so, and thus she
would have it."

[6] PAGE 2, LINE 22. Page 2, line 22. _Machometis sacellum._ Gilbert
credits Matthiolus (the well-known herbalist and commentator on
Dioscorides) with producing the fable as to Mahomet's coffin being
suspended in the air by a magnet. Sir Richard Burton, in his famous
pilgrimage to El Medinah in 1855, effectually disposed of this myth. The
reputed sarcophagus rests simply on bricks on the floor. But it had long
been known that aerial suspension, even of the lightest iron object, in the
air, without contact above or below, was impossible by any magnetic agency.

In Barlowe's _Magneticall Aduertisements_ (London, 1616, p. 45) is the
following: "As for the Turkes _Mahomet_, hanging in the ayer with his yron
chest it is a most grosse untruth, and utterly impossible it is for any
thing to hange in the ayer by any _magneticall_ power, but that either it
must touch the stone it selfe, or else some intermediate body, that
hindreth it from comming to the stone (like as before I haue shewed) or
else some stay below to keepe it from ascending, as some small wier that
may scantly bee seene or perceived."

[7] PAGE 2, LINE 26. Page 2, line 26. _Arsinoes templum._--The account in
Pliny of the magnetic suspension of the statue of Arsinoe in the temple
built by Chinocrates is given as follows in the English version (London,
1601) of Philemon Holland (p. 515): "And here I cannot chuse but acquaint
you with the singular invention of that great architect and master deviser,
of Alexandria in Aegypt _Dinocrates_, who began to make the arched roufe of
the temple of _Arsinoe_ all of Magnet or this Loadstone, to the end, that
within that temple the statue of the said princesse made of yron, might
seeme to hang in the aire by nothing. But prevented he was by death {6}
before hee could finish his worke, like as king _Ptolomaee_ also, who
ordained that temple to be built in the honour of the said _Arsinoe_ his
sister."

There are a number of similar myths in Ausonius, Claudian, and Cassiodorus,
and in the writings of later ecclesiastical historians, such as Rusinus and
Prosper Aquitanus. The very meagre accounts they have left, and the
scattered references to the reputed magical powers of the loadstone,
suggest that there existed amongst the primitive