360 



although at great distances from each other, namely, near Malines, 

 Antwerp, Liege, Louvain, Charleroi, and Courtrai. Those of Aer- 

 schot, Nazareth, Wesemael, fine old buildings, were totally de- 

 stroyed ; those of Puers, Lierre, Aerselaer, Lobbes, Walcourt, Mar- 

 chienne au Pont, Liege, Courtrai, Moorslede, suffered more or less 

 in the steeples or towers. 



March 8, 1860. 



Sir BENJAMIN C. BRODIE, Bart., President, in the Chair. 

 The following communications were read : 



I. " On the Solar-diurnal Variation of the Magnetic Declination 

 at Pekin." By Major-General EDWARD SABINE, E.A., 

 Treas. and V.P.TLS. Received February 2, 1860. 



When the first year of hourly observations of the declination, 

 January 1 to December 31st, 1841, was received at Woolwich from 

 the Magnetic Observatory at Hobarton, and when means had been 

 taken of the readings of the collimator-scale at the several hours in 

 each month, and these monthly means had been collected into an- 

 nual means, it was found that the mean daily motion of the declina- 

 tion magnet at Hobarton presented, as one of its most conspicuous 

 and well-marked features, a double progression in the twenty-four 

 hours, moving twice from west to east, and twice from east to west ; 

 the phases of this diurnal variation were, that the north end of the 

 magnet moved progressively from west to east in the hours of the 

 forenoon, and from east to west in the hours of the afternoon ; and 

 again from west to east during the early hours of the night, return- 

 ing from east to west during the later hours of the night : the two 

 easterly extremes were attained at nearly homonymous hours of the 

 day and night, as were also the two westerly extremes ; the ampli- 

 tudes of the arcs traversed during the hours of the day were con- 

 siderably greater than those traversed during the hours of the night. 



When, in like manner, the first year of hourly observations, July 

 1st, 1842, to June 30th, 1843, was received from the Toronto Ob- 

 servatory, and the mean diurnal march of the declination magnet 



