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Lodestone or loadstone refers to either: Iron, steel and ordinary magnetite are attracted to a magnetic field, including the Earth's magnetic field. Only magnetite with a particular crystalline structure, lodestone, can act as a natural magnet and attract and magnetize iron. The direction pointing nature of lodestone was known as far back as 4th century China, where it was used in geomancy. By the 12th century the Chinese were known to use the lodestone compass for navigation. Far earlier Magnetotactic bacteria had evolved to build miniature magnets inside themselves and use them to establish their orientation relative to the Earth's magnetic field *.
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