Definition of "loadstones" [loadstones]

• Plural form of loadstone. (noun)

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• "On this occasion, she witnessed several experiments of "colours, loadstones, microscopes" and was "full of admiration", although according to Pepys, her dress was "so antic and her deportment so unordinary" that the fellows were made strangely uneasy."
• "Euripes, and a great rock of loadstones, which may cause the needle in the compass still to bend that way, and what should be the true cause of the variation of the compass, [2998] is it a magnetical rock, or the pole-star, as Cardan will; or some other star in the bear, as"
• "I perceived that the parts of the gates that joined on the inside were covered with steel, and just where the said gates touched when they were opened I saw two square Indian loadstones of a bluish hue, well polished, and half a span broad, mortised in the temple wall."