COMMITTEE FOR INVESTiaATION OF TERRESTRIAL 

 MAGNETISM IN AUSTRALASIA. 



Members of Committee. 



Dr. C. C. Farr 1 Mr. E. F. J. Lovf, M.A. 



Professor E. G. Hogg I Mr. P. Baracchi (Secretary). 



1.— REPORT OF THE MAGNETIC COMMITTEE OF 

 VICTORIA. 



The work of the Melbourne Observatory consisted, as usual, in 

 the photographic registration of the magnetic elements, on the ordinary 

 absolute measurement ; also the continuation of the measurement and 

 reduction of the curves of all past years of record, and the completion 

 of the programme in connection with the Antarctic Expedition of 1903. 



The Melbourne series of photographic curves, extending as far back 

 as 1868 — a series which is unique in the Southern Hemisphere — is now 

 complete, so far as the measurement of the hourly ordinates and their 

 preliminary reduction and arrangement in tabular form. 



A catalogue and classification of magnetic disturbances for the 

 same period are now in course of preparation. It should be gratifying 

 to the Australasian Association to sec that through its instrumentaUty 

 the magnetic work of New Zealand and that of Melbourne has been so 

 satisfactorily advanced. With the exception of the two observatories 

 mentioned above, no other institution in Australasia undertakes 

 systematic magnetic work. 



The set of magnetic instruments of the Sydney Observatory for 

 the determination of absolute values of magnetic declination, dip, and 

 horizontal component, with which some occasional observations were 

 made in past years, is now again in good working order, after having 

 been in disuse and in a bad state for several years, and it is intended 

 to utiHse it ; but it is difficult to see what good purpose could be served 

 by these instruments if used at the Sydney Observatory without a 

 complete set of variation instruments. 



The council of this Association should urge the Government of 

 New South Wales, or the future administrative authorities of the 

 Sydney Observatory, to install a complete set of magnetographs for 

 the continuous registration of the variation of the magnetic elements, 

 so that the Sydney Observatory may be able to undertake systematic 

 magnetic work. The same remarks apply also in the case of the Perth 

 Observatory. 



