BOYS' OWN COLUMN.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIII, Issue 125, 28 May 1932, Page 2 (Supplement)

BOYS' OWN COLUMN.

THE MAGIC LODESTONE. WORLD'S NATURAL COMPASS. Dear Boys,—• I remember once taking part in a treasure hunt, the trail of which ran cross-country through trackless bush and scrub. In the instructions which we received prior to starting were the words: "... and remember, oh brave, to take with you the sacred lodestone of the palefaces." The writer referred to the prismatic compass without which a tramper is lost (figuratively, if, indeed not literally). His reference, of course, springs from the fact that the needle of a compass is a magnetised strip of iron. To rub iron on lodestone is to arrive at the same result. There is in the Field Museum in Chicago what may be the largest known specimen of lodestone on exhibition. It came from the Wasatch Mountains in Utah, and weighs four hundred pounds. Perhaps there are rome to whom lodestone ic a new term—may they find enlightenment from the following interesting facts:— Lodestone is magnetic iron ore. That is, it is a natural magnet. Its properties were among the earliest discoveries to be made in the fields of magnetism and electricity. Legend tells us that a Cretan shepherd, many centuries before the Christian era, was amazed to find his iron-shod crook and the iron nails of his sandals clinging to a large rock. Fables picture islands having mountain*: of lodestone, which pulled the iron nails from ships and often drew vessels to destruction. There are, too, wonderful tales of magnetic domes able to hold iron statues suspended in mid air. in time it became known that a long slender bar of this mysterious material, when pivoted so as to be free to swing about a point, would invariably place itself in a nearly north and south direction. Thus this rock was named the lodastone, which mean;, "leading" stone, for ,it led toward the Pole star. Although the Chinese are often credited with the invention of the compass as early as 2637 8.C., it did not appear in £ jrope until about the twelfth century. The explanation of the lodestone is simple. The earth is itself a huge magnet, and iron is the most £<FS a7l magnatic substance known. Having jen^V/^ V^—^**^ been bathed for centuries in the earth's ffLJj/ f magnetic lines of force, this particular kind of iron ore becomes magnetised.