105 



February 14, 1861. 



Major-General SABINE, R.A., Treasurer and Vice-President, 

 in the Chair. 



The following communication was read : 



" On Magnetic Storms and Earth-Currents." By CHARLES V. 

 WALKER, Esq., F.R.S., F.R.A.S. Received Jan. 31, 1861. 



(Abstract.) 



The author first refers to the movements of telegraph needles, due 

 to causes external to the apparatus itself, which were noticed very 

 soon after the first electric telegraphs were erected. In illustration, 

 he gives some extracts from his diary at various dates in the year 

 1847; and a copy of a General Order which he issued on the 25th 

 of October in that year, calling upon the telegraph clerks under his 

 charge in the south-eastern district of England to take notes of these 

 phenomena, and forward them to his office. The telegraph in use 

 there then, as well as now, is Cooke and Wheatstone's needle instru- 

 ment, having one or two vertical galvanometers. 



He makes some extracts from his ' Electric Telegraph Manipula- 

 tion/ published in 1850, showing that the impression expressed iu 

 the extracts from his diary, of a connexion between auroral mani- 

 festations and the phenomena in question, was confirmed. And he 

 refers back to the published account of ' The daily Observations of 

 Magnetometers at the Royal Observatory, Greenwich, in the year 

 1847,' and extracts from it the reports made of the behaviour of the 

 magnetometers on the days cited, showing that they were very much 

 disturbed. 



The author describes the time in question as a period of great 

 disturbance; so much so, that in the year 1848 he was constrained 

 to adopt a device by means of which the telegraph communication 

 might be carried on, notwithstanding the presence of these foreign 

 influences in the wires. But his plans were hardly matured and in 

 operation before the cause disappeared ; the disturbances almost en- 

 tirely ceased. The years 1847 and 1848 had been periods of great 

 activity. The year 1849 was a period almost of inaction ; and this 



