MAGNETISM. 1H5 



ocean tlirougliout its whole course, excepting about one fifth, 

 and consequently be made so much more accessible, owing to 

 the remarkable relations in space between the sea and land, 

 and to the means of which we are now possessed for determin- 

 ino- with much exactness both the declination and the inclina- 

 tion at sea. 



We have described the distribution of magnetism on the 

 surface of our planet according to the two forms of decimation 

 and inclitiation ; it now, tlierefore, remains for us to speak of 

 the intenuty of the force which is graphically expressed by 

 isodynaraic curves (or lines of equal intensity). The investi- 

 gation and measurement of this force by the oscillations of a 

 vertical or horizontal needle have only excited a general and 

 lively interest in its telluric relations since the beginning of 

 the nineteenth century. The application of delicate optical 

 and chronometrical instruments has rendered the measure- 

 ment of this horizontal power susceptible of a degree of accu- 

 racy far surpassing that attained in any other magnetic de- 

 terminations. The isogenic lines are the more important in 

 their immediate application to navigation, while we find from 

 the most recent views that isodynamic lines, especially those 

 which indicate the horizontal force, are the most valuable ele 

 ments in the theory of terrestrial magnetism.* One of the 

 earliest facts yielded by observation is, that the intensity of 

 the total force increases from the equator toward the pole.t 



clinatiGn (Oa llie secular Change in the Magnetic Inclination), in Pogg. 

 AnnaL, bd- xv., s. 322. 



* Gauss, ResuUate der Beoh. des Magn. Vereins, 1833, § 21; Sabine, 

 Report on the Variations of the Magnetic Intensity, p. C3. 



t The following is the histoiy of the discovery of the law that the 

 intensity of the force increases (in general) with the magnetic latitude. 

 When I was anxious to attach myself, in 1798, to the expedition of 

 Captain Baudin, who intended to circumnavigate the globe, I was re 

 quested by Borda, who took a warm interest in the success of my proj 

 ect, to examine the oscillations of a vertical needle in the magnetic ir.e 

 vidian in different latitudes in each hemisphere, in order to determine 

 whether the intensity of the force was the same, or whether it varied in 

 different places. During my travels in the tropical regions of America, 

 I paid much attention to this subject. I observed that the same needle, 

 which ill the space often minutes made 245 oscillations in Paris, 246 in 

 the Havana, and 242 in Mexico, performed only 21G oscillations during 

 the same period at St, Carlos del Rio Negro (1^ 53' north lat. and 80-* 

 40 west long, from Paris), on the magnetic equator, i. e., the line in 

 which the im liiiaiion =0; in Peru (7-^ 1 south lat. and 80^ 40' west 

 long, from Pansj only 211 ; while at Lima (12^ 2' south lat.) the num- 

 ber rose to 2tn. I found, in the years intervening between 1799 and 

 1803, that the whole force, if we assume it at 1-0000 on the magnetic 

 ^^tjuator in the Peruvian Andes, between Micuipampa and Caxamai-ca. 



