; 
| 
ze 
ye 
+ 
C. A. Schott on Magnetic Declination. B35 
Note—Such is the inconvenience resulting from the use of a 
variety of metre scales, and such a number of methods of meas- 
urement, frequently taking quite different points for measures 
bearing the same name, as in the case of the skull especially, 
that the distinguished Professor Von Ber, of St. Petersburg, has 
just proposed a Congress of Anthropologists, to determine upon 
one uniform scale and to establish one system. By this means, 
all the results of measurements of the human body would be 
rendered of universal applicability——Nachrichten iiber die ethnog. 
eraniol. Sammlung zu St. Petersburg. S. 81 
‘Arr. XXIX.— Report of Assistant Charles A. Schott, on the latest 
results of the Discussion of the Secular Change of the Magnetic 
Declination, accompanied by tables showing the declination (varia- 
ton of the needle) for every tenth year from the date of the earliest 
reliable observations, for twenty-six stations on the Atlantic, Gulf, 
and Pacific coasts of the United States. 
[Published in this Journal by permission of the Treasury Department, and commu- 
nicated by Prof. A. D. Bacue, Superintendent U.S. Coast Survey. ] 
IN accordance with the Superintendent's letter of January 21, 
1859, I have prepared a set of tables for practical use, giving 
the secular change of the magnetic declination and showing for 
my severa : 
have been included the latest data in possession of the Coast 
ey. 
_ For the western coast, Coast Survey report for 1856, Ap- 
pendix No. 81, pp. 228-235 may be consulted. 
In general the secular change of the declination appears to be 
of a periodic character, but in no instance has a whole cycle 
completed on either coast. Its length therefore remains 
yecessarily in a great measure uncertain, and the tentative ana- 
lytical process so far followed has for its main object the proper 
able us to caleulate th magnetic declination for any required 
Place and date, withan the limits of the discussion. In the in- 
