Magnets Behavior in Earth's Magnetic Field Some Surprises

I observed something that puzzled me.

I set up 10 neodymium magnets in a stack laid on a 5 inch Styrofoam disc floating in water.
This is simply a very large compass. As you would expect it pointed north/south to align with Earth's magnetic field.

Next I placed a normal compass on a wooden table and held a single magnet closer and closer to it until the compass pointed 45 degrees away from Earth's north. It was about 8 inches away.

Next I held the same magnet a little farther than 8 inches from the large compass I had made floating in water. As I moved it a little closer the large compass started to turn and then proceeded to attract to the magnet in a very direct way.

Why the difference? The difference I am referring to is that the large compass should move north from the attraction of the Earth's magnet but doesn't while it moves towards the single magnet with considerable enthusiasm.

My first guess was that the large compass floating in the water did not move north normally from just the Earth's magnetic field because it was attracted downward towards the Earth's magnet. This was wrong.

What I learned after making some inquiries was that while magnetic torque (what turns the compass needle to point north) is proportional to the strength of the magnetic field the force of magnetic attraction is not but rather proportional to the gradient of the magnetic field. Since the Earth is so much larger than my large compass the gradient (or slope) of the magnetic field is flat and the attraction is nearly zero.

This is relevant to my subject of magnetic field traction in Earth's magnetic field of course. As I already had observed you couldn't get a magnet to directly move a little boat from Earth's magnetic field but now I know why. But more importantly this means you could have one of my rotating or pendulum type magnetic devices in Low Earth Orbit and it would not exert a force or acceleration downward towards the Earth constantly. That is a very good thing.

(There are still other considerations. For example the effects of Lenz' Law which would slow down the magnet in orbit as it crossed Earth's magnetic field lines.)

Here are two experiments that I did related to this (be sure to turn the sound on and read the descriptions):