Miscellanea Curiosa.

present Position of those Poles in the Surface of our Globe, which the Reader pleasing to consult, will save us the pains of repeating. But after all, tho' that Discourse was favourably receiv'd both at home and abroad, as seeming to render a tolerable account of the observ'd Variations, yet I found two Difficulties not easie to surmount; the one was, that no Magnet I had ever seen or heard of, had more than two opposite Poles, whereas the Earth had visibly four, and perhaps more. And secondly, it was plain that these Poles were not, at least all of them, fixt in the Earth, but shifted from place to place, as appear'd by the great Changes in the Needles Direction within this last Century of Years, not only at London, (where this great Discovery was first made) but almost all over the Globe of Earth; whereas it is not known or observ'd that the Poles of a Load-stone ever shifted their place in the Stone, nor