TERRESTRIAL MAGTnE.L^M. 181 



the horizontal deviation from the terrestrial meridian of tha 

 spot. Their combined action may therefore be graphically 

 represented by three systems of lines, the isodijnamic, isodinic, 

 and isogonic (or those of equal force, equal inclination, and 

 equal declination). The distances apart, and the relative po- 

 sitions of these moving, oscillating, and advancing curves, do 

 not always remain the same. The total deviation (variation 

 or declination of the magnetic needle) has not at all changed, 

 or, at any rate, not in any appreciable degree, durmg a whole 

 century, at any particular point on the Earth's surface,* as. 

 for instance, the western part of the Antilles, or Spitzbergen. 

 In like manner, we observe that the isogonic curves, when they 

 pass in their secular motion from the surface of the sea to a 

 continent or an island of considerable extent, continue for a long 

 time in the same position, and become inflected as they advance. 

 These gradual changes in the forms assumed by the lines 

 in their translatory motions, and which so unequally modify 

 the amount of eastern and western declination, in the course 

 of time render it difficult to trace the transitions and analogies 

 of forms in the graphic representations belonging to difierent 

 centuries. Each branch of a curve has its history, but this 

 historv docs not reach further back among the nations of tho 

 West'than the memorable epoch of the 13th of September, 

 1492, when the re-discoverer of the New World found a hue 

 of no variation 3^ west of the meridian of the island of Flores, 

 one of the Azores.! The Avhole of Europe, excepting a small 



* A very slow secular progression, or a local invariability of the mag- 

 netic declination, prevents the confusion which might arise from terres- 

 trial influences in the boundaries of land, when, with an utter disrc gard 

 for the correction of declination, estates are, after long intervals, r jeas- 

 ured by the mere application of the compass. '' The whole mass cf 

 West Indian property," says Sir John Herschel, " has been saved from 

 the bottomless pit of endless litigation by the invariability of the mag- 

 netic declination in Jamaica and the surrounding Archipelago during 

 the whole of the last century, all surveys of property there having 

 been conducted solely by the compass." See Robertson, in the Fhilo- 

 gophical Transactions for 1806, Pai't ii., p. 348, On the Permanency cf 

 the Compais in Jamaica since 16G0. In the mother country (England) 

 the magnetic declination has varied by fully 14° during that period. 



t I have elsewhere shown that, from the documents which have 

 come down to us regarding the voyages of Columbus, we can, with 

 much certaintv, fix upon three places in the Atlantic line of no declina- 

 tion for the r3th of September, 1492, the 21st of May, 149G, and the 

 16th of August, 1498. The Atlantic line of no declination at that pe- 

 riod ran fi-om northeast to southwest. It then touched the Soutb 

 American continent a little east of Cape Codera, while it is now ob- 

 served to reach that continent on the northern coast of the Brf.ziU 

 (Humboldt, Ezamen Critique dc VHist. de la Giogr., t. iii., p. 44 4>/ "5 



