Paul St. Pierre, age 11, of Portland, Maine, for his question:

Who discovered the magnet?

We tend to think that all magnets, large and small, are manufactured by mankind. If this were so, we might be able to point to who invented them and name the date. Actually, nature has been producing magnets since time began and even the earth itself is a giant magnet. So it comes as no surprise that natural magnets were discovered before the invention of man made magnets.

Natural magnets are black or dark streaky stones, often found scattered on the ground. The mineral, called magnetite, is basically iron oxide, perhaps with traces of manganese or magnesium, zinc or several other metals. The built in magnetic quality was added by fierce temperatures during crustal upheavals.

This is why deposits of magnetite are found with igneous rocks. Through the ages, stray samples have been freed by weathering and strewn around as magnetized pebbles or grains of sand. Also strewn around are meteorites whose metallic atoms were magnetized by searing heat as they fell down through the, atmosphere.

These assorted natural magnets have been on earth for countless years and no doubt some of our forgotten ancestors discovered their magical qualities before the dawn of history. Later, early writers had several versions of how magnets were discovered.

Pliny of ancient Rome gives the credit to a Greek shepherd boy named Manges. The young shepherd wore tips of iron on his sandals ¬and there were natural magnets on Mount Ida, where he tended his flocks. The magnetic stones clung to his sandals and to the iron tip on his shepherd's crook.

Until the Middle Ages, these stones were merely fascinating novelties. Then the Chinese discovered that a sliver of free swinging magnet points north. From this, they invented the magnetic compass. In 1269, a French crusader described how to make two types of magnetic compasses. One used a magnet swinging on a pivot, the other let it float on a raft in a bowl of water.

This magnet observer, Petrus Peregrinus de Maricourt, was perhaps the first to make a proper investigation of magnetic properties. He discovered that a magnet has two poles and assumed that this is where its force is concentrated. Little more was discovered until the 1500s.

This time, the magnetic mystery was tackled by William Gilbert, who happened to be the physician of England's Queen Elizabeth I. Gilbert discovered that opposite magnetic poles attract each other and explained that the compass works because the earth itself is a magnet.

We cannot say who first discovered a magnet. But we do know that its last inner secrets were not revealed until the 1800s. Oersted of Denmark discovered that magnetic force surrounds an electrically charged wire. Michael Faraday joined the forces of magnetism and electricity ¬and invented the generator. James Clerk Maxwell worked out the math to explain the mysterious relationship of magnetism and electricity.