98 Major-General Sabine on the Cosmical Features 



netic variations was but too lightly regarded. For some years 

 previous to the epoch to which I have referred, the minds of 

 several of the most eminent scientific men on the Continent, as 

 well as in this country, had been impressed with a conviction that 

 it was not altogether creditable that a force should be admitted 

 to exist and to prevail at all parts of the surface of the globe, of 

 the source or of the nature of which, or of its laws of action, we 

 had no proper knowledge. At the instigation of two of the most 

 influential men of the age to which they belonged, MM. de Hum- 

 boldt and Gauss, Berlin and subsequently Gottingen became 

 successively centres of researches, in which many German obser- 

 vers, incited by the opinions and example of those whom they 

 regarded as scientific leaders, took part. The interest created 

 by these researches, limited as they were both in respect to 

 objects and to the extent of country over which they were made, 

 may be justly referred to as having prepared the way for that 

 more extended and complete organization which, under the 

 auspices of the British Government and the supervision of a 

 Committee of the Royal Society, has succeeded in definitively 

 raising terrestrial magnetism to the dignity of an inductive 

 science, pursuing its steady progress by well-considered and 

 carefully-executed experimental researches, and resting its con- 

 clusions on copious and extensive induction. 



The attention of the German observers had been directed 

 chiefly to investigations connected with a class of phenomena 

 apparently of a very irregular and almost, as it might have been 

 supposed, of a capricious nature. The magnetic needle was 

 known to be occasionally subject to sudden and transient fluctua- 

 tions, continuing sometimes for hours and sometimes even for 

 days together, and frequently exceeding in amount of disturb- 

 ance any known periodical variations. It was found by contem- 

 poraneous observations, made on concerted days at several sta- 

 tions in Germany, that these fluctuations occurred simulta- 

 neously, and nearly to the same amount, over the whole extent 

 of country in which the "term observations," as they were called, 

 were made, comprising a considerable portion of the north of 

 Germany. It had been at first supposed that these irregular and 

 sudden fluctuations might originate in disturbances of the atmo- 

 sphere ; but the large extent of country over which they were 

 now shown to be synchronous, and even surprisingly similar, not 

 only in the larger but also in most of the smaller oscillations, 

 was unfavourable to this supposition. The result of the German 

 researches was therefore greatly to enhance the interest of these 

 phenomena ; but both their source and their laws still remained 

 wholly unknown. 



In directing the attention of those who should engage in the 



