NOTICES OF THE PROGRESS OF OUR KNOWLEDGE 

 REGARDING THE MAGNETIC STORMS. 



BY MAJOR GENERAL EDWARD SABINE, R. A. 



FROM THE PROCEEDINGS OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY OF LONDON. VOL. X. 



It may not be unsuitable on the present occasion to take a brief 

 retrospective view of the progress of our knowledge respecting these 

 remarkable phenomena, videlicet, the casual magnetic disturbances or 

 magnetic storms. Antecedently to the formation of the German Mag- 

 netic Association, and the publication of its first annual report, in 

 1837, our information concerning them went no further than that 

 there occurred at times, apparently not of regular recurrence, extraor- 

 dinary agitations or perturbations of the magnetic needle, which 

 had been noticed in several instances to have taken place contempo- 

 raneously in parts of the European continent distant from each other, 

 and to have been accompanied by remarkable displays of aurora, seen 

 either at the locality itself where the needle was disturbed, or observed 

 contemporaneously elsewhere. The opinion which appears to have 

 generally prevailed at this time was, that the aurora and the mag- 

 netic disturbances were kindred phenomena, originating probably in 

 atmospherical derangements, or connected at least in some way with 

 disturbances of the atmospherical equilibrium. They were classed 

 accordingly as "Meteorological Phenomena," and were supposed to 

 have a local, though it might be in some instances a wide extension 

 and prevalence. 



The special purpose of the German Magnetic Association was to 

 subject the iC irregular magnetic disturbances" (as they were then 

 called in contradistinction to the regular periodical and secular varia- 

 tions) to a more close examination, by means of systematized observa- 

 tions made simultaneously in many parts of Germany. With this view, 

 six concerted days in each year were set apart in which the direction 

 of the declination magnet should be observed with great accuracy by 

 methods then for the first time introduced, at successive intervals of 

 five minutes for twenty-four consecutive hours, the meteorological in- 

 struments being observed at the same time. The clocks at all the sta- 



