De Magnetica [...] Plantarum p. 649

dressed up in a glass sphere by Francis Line, an English priest of our Society, but since I have not as yet been permitted to know the theory and method of its construction I have not thought it appropriate to give my verdict on it. But lest any should think such a thing impossible et incroyable (as is the way of those philosophers who, since they are equipped with no experience, also give no credence to something which they cannot assess with their own intellect), he will know that many things lie hidden in nature which transcend the capacity of human intellect; who could ever be induced to believe in those miracles of the magnet which I have set forth in the preceding volumes had I not known their utter truth by observable and palpable demonstration? There are indeed many similar things that I have either found out from my own experience or heard from the reports of trustworthy men, for example about certain attractive herbs which acquire an incredible capacity for drawing other things to them.

Thapsia, according to Theophrastus, has the property that, if included in a pot filled with morsels of meat, it attracts all the morsels by its power, and once collected glues them together into a single mass so that they cannot be removed without breaking the pot. They say that Symphytum [Comfrey] is equipped with a similar capacity. Aetites [Eaglestone] is a stone pregnant with another stone; they are particularly abundant in the Todi region of Umbria; here, bound to a woman's thigh to speed childbirth, it often draws the womb so powerfully that it pulls it completely out of place. Eusebio Nieremberg writes that he has heard something quite surprising from a certain Father; he had recently arrived from the Island of Ceylon, where during his stay there he says he came across two men who, standing 20 paces apart, held in their hands two pieces of wood, which were so drawn by some occult power that they could scarcely resist it by force, until they were brought together; this conjunction was made by means of a certain herb equipped with some wondrous attractive power, which was placed midway between the two. Someone else, who had spent a lot of time in Bengal, recounted that there is found in that region a herb which attracts other woods just as a magnet attracts iron and joins them together, and that it was by the use of this herb that the previously mentioned attraction of woods happened. I too have heard here in Rome from Fr. Didaco Salazar, who had landed here at Rome on business with the Mexican Procurator, that there is in the province of Mexico a certain kind of shrub not unlike a pomegranate, of which, when its younger growth is cut in a certain way, the parts repel each other with such a hatred that they cannot be held together even by force, so that it is an ubiquitous children's game there. I add all this so the Reader may see that many things unknown to men lie hidden in nature,