History of magnets

There is an interesting story behind how people came  to know about magnets.There was a Greek shepherd named manes.One day he stood resting his staff on a large black rock.He could not move as the iron tip of his staff got stuck to the rock.The Greek named this wonderful  rock magnetite.The Chinese are believed to be the first  to use this rock to indicate direction.The piece of this rock when suspended freely comes to rest in a correction.Ancient chines sailors used piece of this rock for navigation.They give it a chines name  magnet leading stone.later this word was mispronounced as lodestones.The word magnet comes from magnetite which is a type of iron ore found at  different places on the earth.The chemical name of the magnetite is monoxide.