410 Miscellaneous. [April, 



Miscellaneous. 



A Notice of a very remarkable local deviation of the Compass near 

 Saugor in Bundelcund, communicated by Captain J. H. Campbell, 

 B. A. — By Henry Piddington. 



In November last I received from Captain J. H. Campbell, B. A. Commissary 

 of Ordnance at Saugor in Bundelcund, a letter of which the following is an 

 extract: — 



" A friend of mine was lately surveying the line of road from this northward 

 to Heerapore, when the following strange incident took place, and which I give 

 you in his own words. 



"I send you the account of the magnetic attraction. I observed on the 

 banks of a nullah close to the village of Sarraroo, 33| miles hence on the 

 Nowgong road. The instrument I used was a Prismatic Surveying Compass, 

 3J inches in diameter, and the disk divided into twice 180°. I was sur- 

 veying the road, and found on arriving at station " 6" on the banks of a stony 

 nullah, that the back bearing to station " a v was 165°, S. E. ; thinking that this 

 was an error I placed the instrument at station " a" and found the bearing of " b" 

 to be 60° N. E. of a Peepul tree on the right of the road 71° 40' N. E., and of 

 the sun (which had risen about £ an hour) 105 S. E. ; I then measured to the 

 Peepul tree 68 yards, and planting the instrument there found the bearing, of 

 station " b" 58° N. E., and of the sun 106° 40' S. E. After this I rturned to " 6" 

 and found the bearing to "a" 165° S. E., the Peepul Tree 163° 30' S. E., 

 and to the sun 35° N. E. I next passed 232 yards beyond station " 6" and 

 placing my compass in exact alignement with flags " a" and " &," found the 

 back bearing to " a" to be 60° S. W,, thus proving that the forward bearing 

 from " a" to " 6" was perfectly correct, and that there must be some magnetic 

 attraction at station " 6." On returning to " 6" I found the forward bearing to 

 "c" was 177° N. W., whereas at "c" the bearing of" V was 72° 30' S. W. 

 This was on the 20th of October last month. On my returning on the 23d 

 October, I tried many experiments, and found that the attraction was confined 

 to the spot " 6," as 10 paces from it all round the needle was not affected. " 



Such is this officer's account of this strange occurrence. At his request I 

 tried some experiments in the Magazine here, near piles of shot and shells, to see 

 if iron alone could affect the needle to such a degree ; I took one of the same sort 

 of Prismatic Compasses which I have in store in the Magazine, and applied it in 

 the same manner as the above officer did in his experiments, and on placing the 

 instrument near a small pile of 61b shot found the attraction to be 2°, and near 

 a large pile of 24 pr. shot it was 6°, I tried this two or three times, but never 



