155 



workmen and tenants. Some of these are no longer known in 

 York ; but several remain, derived perhaps, in many instances, 

 from those who bore them when the roll was written. Among 

 these one may be deservedly noticed. The name of Sotherone 

 is inscribed in the Compotus of Tho. Singleton, as a tenant 

 of a house in Clifton belonging to the Monastery of St. Mary at 

 York, in the beginning of the 16th century : and that name 

 stands enrolled among the benefactors of the Yorkshire Philo- 

 sophical Society, in the middle of the 19th century, as that 

 of the donor of this valuable document. 



On Ma(/neticPhanomena in Yorkshire. — JJy John Phillips, 

 P.R.S. Bead Jan., 1851. 



I purpose in this communication to place on record some 

 measures of the Direction and Intensity of Magnetism in 

 Yorkshire, from my own observations made at intervals during 

 the last 20 years ; and some inferences touching the relation of 

 magnetism to the physical geography of the District. The 

 Magnetic Direction at any point of the earth's surface is usually 

 expressed in two planes, one of which is parallel to the surface 

 there, the other perpendicular to it. The direction of the needle, 

 mounted so as to move freely in the first mentioned plane, settles 

 to rest on a line called the magnetic meridian, which is com- 

 pared with the meridian of the place, and the angle between 

 the two is called the Declination or variation of the compass. 

 This angle is variable; in 1657* it was reduced to zero; in 

 London, the needle then coinciding with the meridian. It is 

 now, at York, about 24°, the needle pointing by so much to 

 the west of north and east of south. I find very little difierence 

 in this respect in the course of 25 years; at the beginning of this 

 period it was about 25°, and it seems to be slowly diminishing. 



If the place of the needle at 9 a. m. be assumed, for com- 

 parison, constant, the deviation of the north end towards the 

 west is augmented about midday, and in the afternoon, by a 



• Gayallo, on Magnetism, p. 55. 



