Story Of The Magnet

I

In olden days there was a shepherd whose name was Magnes. Magnes lost a sheep. He went to the mountains to find it. He came to a place where there were barren rocks. He walked over these rocks, and felt that his boots were sticking to them. He touched them with his hand, but they were dry and did not stick to his hand. He started to walk again, and again his boots stuck to the rocks. He sat down, took off one of his boots, took it into his hand, and touched the rocks with it.

Whenever he touched them with his skin, or with the sole of his boot, they did not stick; but when he touched them with the nails, they did stick.

Magnes had a cane with an iron point.

He touched a rock with the wood: it did not stick; he touched it with the iron end, and it stuck so that he could not pull it off.

Magnes looked at the stone, and he saw that it looked like iron, and he took pieces of that stone home with him. since then that rock has been known, and has been called magnet.

II

Magnet is found in the earth with iron ore. Where there is magnet in the ore, the iron is of the best quality. The magnet resembles iron.

If you put a piece of iron on magnet, the iron itself begins to attract other iron. And if you put a steel needle on a magnet, and hold it this for a while, the needle will become a magnet, and will attract iron. If two magnets are brought together at their ends, one side will turn away from the other, while the other side will be attracted.

If a magnetic rod is brooked in tow, each half will attract at one end, and will turn away at the other end. Cut it again, and the same will happen; cut it again, as often as you please, and still the same will happened: equal ends will turn away from each other, while opposite ends will be attracted, as though the magnet were pushing away at one end, and pulling in at the other. No matter how you may break it, it will be as though there were a bump at one end, and a saucer at the other. Whichever way you put them together,-a bump and a saucer will meet, but a bump and a bump, or a saucer and a saucer will not.

III

If you magnetise a needle (holding it for a while over a magnet), and attach it in the middle to a pivot in such a way that it can move freely around, and let it loose, it will turn with one end towards midday (south) and with the other toward midnight (north).

When the magnet was not know, people did not sail far out to sea. When they went out far into the sea, so that land was not to be seen, they could tell only by the stars and the sun where had to sail. But when it was dark, and the sun or strs could not be seen, they did not know which way the sail. And a ship was borne by the winds and carried on rocks and wrecks.

So long as the magnet was not known, they did not sail far from the shore; but when the magent was discovered, they made a magent needle on a pivot, so that is should move around freely. By this needle they could tell in which direction to sail. With the magnet needle they began to sail farther away from the shore, and since then they have discovered many new seas.

On ships there is always a magnet needle (compass) and there is always measuring rope with knots at the stern of a ship. This rope is fixed in such a way that when it unrolls, they can tell how far the ship has travelled. And it is, whether far from the shore, and in what direction it is sailing.

[The Magnet, Stories from Physics, Tolstoi Fables for Children, The Colonial Press, C.H.Simonds Co., Boston, U.S.A]