I still want to know how FE'ers account for this. Isn't this evidence that Gravity exists as a force, and applies down here on Earth?
I have not looked into this yet, but the magnetism was the first thing that came to mind. The principle difference in our understanding of the concept of gravity is that I believe that heavy things go downwards while you probably believe they are pulled inwards to the centre of huge objects like the way you imagine the World to be, probably due in some way to the mass of such objects. Your view is much older than Newton as the globularists of Ptolemy's era had already thought of it as a defense of their theory. The following by Lactantius is a summary of how the globularist misunderstanding of gravity came into being:
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"What course of argument, therefore, led them to the idea of the antipodes? They saw the courses of the stars travelling towards the west; they saw that the sun and the moon always set towards the same quarter, and rise from the same. But since they did not perceive what contrivance regulated their courses, nor how they returned from the west to the east, but supposed that the heaven itself sloped downwards in every direction, which appearance it must present on account of its immense breadth, they thought that the world is round like a ball, and they fancied that the heaven revolves in accordance with the motion of the heavenly bodies; and thus that the stars and sun, when they have set, by the very rapidity of the motion of the world are borne back to the east. Therefore they both constructed brazen orbs, as though after the figure of the world, and engraved upon them certain monstrous images, which they said were constellations. It followed, therefore, from this rotundity of the heaven, that the earth was enclosed in the midst of its curved surface. But if this were so, the earth also itself must be like a globe; for that could not possibly be anything but round, which was held enclosed by that which was round. But if the earth also were round, it must necessarily happen that it should present the same appearance to all parts of the heaven; that is, that it should raise aloft mountains, extend plains, and have level seas. And if this were so, that last consequence also followed, that there would be no part of the earth uninhabited by men and the other animals. Thus the rotundity of the earth leads, in addition, to the invention of those suspended antipodes.
But if you inquire from those who defend these marvellous fictions, why all things do not fall into that lower part of the heaven, they reply that such is the nature of things, that heavy bodies are borne to the middle, and that they are all joined together towards the middle, as we see spokes in a wheel; but that the bodies which are light, as mist, smoke, and fire, are borne away from the middle, so as to seek the heaven. I am at a loss what to say respecting those who, when they have once erred, consistently persevere in their folly, and defend one vain thing by another; but that I sometimes imagine that they either discuss philosophy for the sake of a jest, or purposely and knowingly undertake to defend falsehoods, as if to exercise or display their talents on false subjects. But I should be able to prove by many arguments that it is impossible for the heaven to be lower than the earth, were is not that this book must now be concluded, and that some things still remain, which are more necessary for the present work. And since it is not the work of a single book to run over the errors of each individually, let it be sufficient to have enumerated a few, from which the nature of the others may be understood."
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As to Cavendish, I thank you for drawing this to our attention, but you attach more weight to it than I do judging by your conclusion that the Earth is globular because of the Cavendish experiment. I consider such a conclusion to be a hypothesis requiring multiple other specific opinions which I do not share. And there is still the question as to whether Cavendish confirms your view of gravity which must show that the experiment works with materials such as lead (or something like plastic or anything that one would presume to have minimal magnetic draw) and then still prove that with respect to such materials their effect upon a suspended object (if they have one) is not magnetism.
Do you equate magnetism with gravity?