12 Lovering and Bond on Magnetic Observations at Cambridge. 
mass of data thus accumulated must of necessity be, we trust the 
whole will be printed (each nation and each department of course 
providing for the publication of its own). No consideration of econ- 
omy should be allowed to interfere with the performance of this ne- 
cessary duty, without which we look upon all that shall be done as 
virtually thrown away. Highly as we respect the illustrious body 
above mentioned, and applaud their selection of the individual into 
whose hands the results will in the first instance pass; yet their 
full, fair, and effectual discussion can be secured by no other means 
than by inviting to it the collective reason of the age, and of all 
succeeding ones, and affording every one who may think proper to 
engage in the task, now or hereafter, ample opportunity to do so.” * 
It should be stated, for the information of those who have not 
watched the progress of the recent investigation into the laws of 
the earth’s Magnetism, that it originated with Baron Humboldt and 
Professor Gauss of Gottingen. In 1828, Baron Humboldt laid the 
foundation of the German Magnetic Association, by erecting a mag- 
netic Observatory at Berlin, which was imitated in various parts of 
Germany and Russia. In 1833, the attention of Gauss was called 
to the theoretical consideration of the earth’s Magnetism, but he 
found himself soon arrested by the want of accurate and extensive 
data. He instituted accordingly a magnetic Observatory at Gottin- 
gen, and having furnished it with new instruments began observing 
in March, 1834. Codperation was sought and obtained in various 
parts of the continent; a more intimate alliance was formed be- 
tween the several points of observation; and after various modifica- 
tions in the time and mode of observing, the amount of which was 
to make the observations more minute and the number of Terms 
smaller, one day in the months of February, May, August and No- 
* London Quarterly Review, No. cxxxi, page 303. 
