IV 



work of his life. Two years after taking his degree he commenced reading 

 law in London ; but his inclination was still for science. Eeliuquishing 

 reluctantly a Trinity Lectureship offered to him by Whewell in 1838, and 

 offered again and almost accepted in 1840, resisting a strong temptation 

 to accompany Sir James Eoss to the Antarctic regions on the scientific 

 exploring expedition of the ' Erebus' and 'Terror' in 1840-41, and re- 

 gretfully giving up the idea of a Scottish professorship, which, during his 

 early years of residence in Lincoln's Inn, had many attractions for him, 

 he finally made the bar his profession. But during all the long years of 

 hard work through which he gradually attained to an important and 

 extensive practice, and to a high reputation as a Chancery barrister, he 

 never lost his interest in science, nor ceased to be actively engaged in 

 scientific pursuits ; and he always showed a lively and generous sym- 

 pathy with others, to whom circumstances (considered in this respect 

 enviable by him) had alJotted a scientific profession. 



About the year 1841 his attention was drawn to the problem of 

 ships' magnetism by his friend Major Sabiue, who was at that time 

 occupied with the reduction of his own early magnetic observations 

 made at sea on board the ships 'Isabella' and 'Alexander' on the 

 Arctic Expedition of 1818, and of corresponding magnetic observa- 

 tions which had been then recently made on board the ' Erebus ' 

 and 'Terror' in Capt. Eoss's Antarctic Expedition of 1840-41. The 

 systematic character of the deviations, unprecedented in amount, ex- 

 perienced by "the ' Isabella ' and ' Alexander ' in the course of their 

 Arctic voyage, had attracted the attention of Poisson, who published in 

 1824, in the ' Memoirs of the Prench Institute,' three papers containing a 

 mathematical theory of magnetic induction, with application to ships' 

 magnetism. The subsequent magnetic survey of the Antarctic regions, 

 of which by 'far the greater part had to be executed by daily observations 

 of terrestrial magnetism on ship-board, brought into permanent view the 

 importance of Poisson's general theory ; but at the same time demon- 

 strated the necessity for replacing his practical formulae by others, not 

 limited by certain restrictions as to symmetry of the ship, which he had 

 assumed for the sake of simplicity. This was the chief problem first put 

 before Smith by Sabine ; and his solution of it was the first great service 

 \vhich he rendered to the practical correction of the disturbance of the 

 compass caused by the magnetism, of ships. Twenty years later the 

 work thus commenced was referred to in the following terms by Sir 

 Edward Sabine*, in presenting, as President of the Eoyal Society, the 

 Eoyal Medal which had been awarded to Archibald Smith for his in- 

 vestigations and discoveries in ships' magnetism: * * "Himself 

 " a mathematician of the first order, and possessing a remarkable facility 

 " (which is far from common) of so adapting truths of an abstract cha- 

 * Proceedings of the Eoyal Society, Nov. 30, 18G5, vol. xiv. p. 499. 





