Page:History of the Royal Society.djvu/246

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222
The HISTORY of

same Pole of the Loadstone, both attract and chase the same end of the Needle, without touching it; to find the variation of the Loadstone here at London.

Experiments with the dipping Needle; of the extraordinary Strength in Proportion to its Bulk of a small Loadstone; to measure the strength of the Magnetical attractive Power, at several Distances from the Stone: to examine the Force of the attractive Power, through several Mediums, as Water, Air, Wood, Lead, and Stone; to divert the attractive Power, by interposing Iron; to find the directive Virtue of the Loadstone under water.

Experiments to manifest by the Help of Steel-dust, the Lines of the directive Virtue of the Loadstone to be oval, in a contrary Position to what Des Cartes's Theory makes them: to manifest those Lines of Direction by the Help of Needles; to discover those Lines of Direction, when the Influence of many Loadstones is compounded; to find what those Lines are incompassing a Sphærical Loadstone, what about a Square, and what about a regular Figure; to bore through the Axis of a Loadstone, and fill it up with a Cylindrical Steel: Experiments on Loadstones having many Poles, and yet the Stones seeming uniform.

Of Vegetables.The fifth Kind is of the Growth of Vegetables in several Kinds of Water; as River-water, Rain-water, Distill'd Water, May-Dew; of hindring the Growth of Seed-Corn in the Earth, by extracting the Air, and furthering their Growth, by admitting it; of steeping Seeds of several Kinds; of inverting the Positions of Roots and Plants set in the Ground, to find whether there are Valves in the Pores of the Wood, that only open one Way; of the Decrease of the Weight

of