The behaviour of the coercive force, H c , of ferrimagnets near the compensation temperature, T comp , for polycrystalline rare earth iron garnets R 3 Fe 5 O 12 (R ¼ Gd, Tb, Dy, Ho and Er) has been studied in detail. The present experimental results have verified the double peak in H c near T comp for these rare earth iron garnets R 3 Fe 5 O 12 . For Dy 3 Fe 5 O 12 , the experimental values are T comp ¼ 224 K, H c (max) ¼ 600 Oe at T comp AE K and % 10 K. The two peaks of H c arise at 214 and 232 K. The appearance of the double peak of H c is an intrinsic and characteristic property for R 3 Fe 5 O 12 . The results can be understood on the basis of a simple model. The hysteresis loop in the magnetization is caused by rotation of single domain under the influence of crystalline anisotropy rather than domain wall displacements of the multi-domain structure. The rare earth ion behaves as superimposed paraprocess under the influence of an internal field produced by iron sublattices and a weak exchange magnetic field.