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X~K~X~X £ * FROM GILBERTS D E M jI G M E T E 4 Word Mongers and “Chattering Barbers” "Word mongers” and “chattering barbers,” Gilbert called those of his predecessors who asserted that a wound made by a magnetized needle was painless, that a magnet will attract silver, that the diamond will draw iron, that the magnet thirsts and dies in the absence of iron, that a magnet, pulverized and taken with sweetened water, will cure headaches and prevent fat. Before Gilbert died in 1603, he had done much to explain magnetism and electricity through experiment. He found that by hammering iron held in a magnetic meridian it can be magnetized. He discovered that the compass needle is controlled by the earth’s magnetism and that one magnet can remagnetize another that has lost its power. He noted the common electrical attraction of rubbed bodies, among them diamonds, as well as glass, crystals, and stones, and was the first to study electricity as a distinct force. “Not in books, but in things themselves, look for knowl edge,” he shouted. This man helped to revolutionize methods of thinking—helped to make electricity what it has become. His fellow men were little concerned with him and his experi ments. “Will Queen Elizabeth marry—and whom?” they were asking. Elizabeth’s flirtations mean little to us. Gilbert’s method means much. It is the method that has made modem electricity what it has become, the method which enabled the Research Laboratories of the General Electric Com pany to discover new electrical principles now applied in transmitting power for hundreds of miles, in lighting homes electrically, in aiding physicians with the X-rays, in freeing civilization from drudgery. general Office COIHp3.Iiy Schenectady,N.Y. 95-624 A. E. X~X~K~H"H~K~:~X~K"X« •X"H-X~X~X~K~X~>