Active Reading-Summary: Chapter One

This chapter starts out with Aureliano Buendia stating that he remembers the day his father took him for the first time to see ice. This continues on and the tale of how the gypsies come to Macondo annually in March to bring their new discoveries. On one encounter, a gypsy named Melquiades brings with him magnets. Jose Arcadio Buendia is fascinated by this new object, so he buys it from Melquiades and Melquiades even warns him that the magnets could not work for that. Juan Arcadio Buendia is stubborn and insists that the gypsy is lying and goes forward witht hte trade on the magnets for a donkey and two goats. Ursula who is Jose Arcadios wife begs him not to do the trade for they depend on the goats and donkey yet he still does it. Later, Jose Arcadio Buendia found out that the magnets did not help with the gold. Soon after he begins to do "alchemy" which is the science and belief that you can turn elements into gold. He eventually gave up and then the new wonder came to town. Ice.