The Magnetic Wand

Bore a hole three-tenths of an inch in diameter, through a round stick

of wood; or get a hollow cane about eight inches long, and half an

inch thick. Provide a small steel rod, and let it be very strongly

impregnated with a good magnet: this rod is to be put in the hole you

have bored through the wand, and closed at each end by two small ends

of ivory that screw on, different in their shapes, that you may better

distin uish the poles of the magnetic bar.



When you present the north pole of this wand to the south[E] pole of a

magnetic needle, suspended on a pivot, or to a light body swimming on

the surface of the water, (in which you have placed a magnetic bar,)

that body will approach the wand, and present that end which contains

the south end of the bar: but if you present the north or south end of

the wand to the north or south end of the needle, it will recede from

it.



[E] For the more clearly explaining this, it is to be

observed, that the two ends of a magnet are called its poles.

When placed on a pivot, in just equilibrium, that end which

turns to the north is called the north pole, and the other

end the south pole.