Abstract
A PARAGRAPH in the article on “The Early History of Magnetism,” in your last number, contains a passage which requires, I think, a note of explanation. The writer says: “A Latin letter ascribed to Peter Adsiger, 1269, preserved among the manuscripts of the University of Leyden, contains the following remark on the declination of the needle…” Now Humboldt, on the authority of Libri, denies the existence of the passage in the Leyden MSS., affirming that it is only an interpolation in a Paris copy. But what is of more importance, he also states that the title of the letter is “Epistola Ptri P. de Maricourt ad Sigernum de Foucoucourt.” E. Walker, in his well-known essay on Magnetism, refers to Cavallo as quoting the supposed letter of Adsiger.
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PERRY, S. History of Magnetism. Nature 14, 10 (1876). https://doi.org/10.1038/014010a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/014010a0
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