Sciences of Meteorology and Terrestrial Magnetism. 18 L 



atmosphere, or operating through this medium, Terrestrial Magnetism 

 may in this view be regarded as a branch of Meteorology. It is cer- 

 tainly not an inapt classification to regard it as such, in the state to 

 which the science has now arrived. Without entering fully into the 

 subject here, we shall merely set forth a few of the more striking results 

 lately established ; a full detail is impossible, as perhaps no other branch 

 of this great subject has made so much progress, been so systematically 

 and ably pursued, or called forth an equal refinement and skill in the 

 construction of instruments and methods of observing. The credit is 

 mainly due to the Norwegian Parliament and the British Association — 

 the latter at length liberally aided by her Majesty's Government. The 

 chief actors in this great undertaking were Hansteen of Christiania 

 and Major-General Sabine of the Royal Artillery. The mathematical 

 theory has been most ably developed by M. Gauss of Gbttingen and our 

 distinguished president, Professor W. Thomson — the latter, in a series 

 of papers read before the Royal Society, beginning in 1851. We be- 

 lieve that the first suggestion of combined and continuous observations 

 on certain days, previously fixed, is due to Baron Humboldt, whose 

 appeal to the Royal Society on the subject led to the adoption, on the 

 part of our Government, of those extensive inquiries which Major-Gene- 

 ral Sabine has conducted to so successful an issue. For the investiga- 

 tion of certain formulse, necessaiy to the right conduct of the inquiries, 

 he acknowledges his obligations to Mr. Archibald Smith of Jordanhill. 

 The most important instruments by which the inquiries have been 

 conducted are due to the ingenuity of M. Gauss, and Professor H. 

 Lloyd, of Trinity College, Dublin. — Other Governments lent a willing 

 assistance, especially that of Russia, whose vast territories are celebrated 

 for the most striking displays of magnetic phenomena. 



(24.) The King of Sweden, in 1829, requested a grant of money 

 from the Norwegian Storthing to build a new palace at Christiania ; the 

 parliament resolved that the king could wait, and granted a sum of the 

 same amount to send Hansteen to Siberia, to determine the position of 

 the eastern magnetic pole, and for collateral magnetical objects. The 

 western magnetic pole had been abeady fixed by Commander Ross, now 

 Sir James Clark Ross, off the north-west of America. The celebrated 

 voyage which Ross made to the antarctic regions, in 1840-2, already 

 referred to, was undertaken at the public expense, on the representation 

 of the British Association. Observatories were also established at 

 Hobart town, the Cape, St. Helena, and Toronto — critical stations 

 pointed out by our men of science. OiHcers on foreign stations or on 

 voyages in various seas, were instructed how and what to observe. The 

 magnetic elements and their changes were the chief subjects of reseai-ch, 



