Ill 



awfully fatal shipwreck (that of the " Royal Charter") had occurred 

 to iron merchant vessels, which were officially traced to compass 

 errors. 



The force of circumstances at the close of the Russian war, as 

 is well known, rapidly brought about the conviction that our war 

 ships must be iron, and not only this, bat that they must be armour- 

 plated, and thus almost suddenly a. question presented itself to science 

 and practical knowledge, the difficulties of which have probably rarely 

 been surpassed, viz., how to overcome the intricacies of magnetism in 

 such ships. That the difficulty was surmounted is of course known, 

 though at what cost of close and laborious investigation, theoretical 

 and practical, for years, is known but to few. 



That it was successfully and triumphantly overcome is mainly due 

 to two individuals, viz., the late Mr. Archibald Smith, F.R.S., and the 

 subject of this notice ; and their names will ever be associated with 

 the solution of a question the importance of which to a maritime 

 nation cannot be over-estimated. 



It is unnecessary to enter here into the scientific merits of Archibald 

 Smith, they are of world-wide renown ; suffice it for our purpose to 

 say, that he was a mathematician of the highest order, had long gone 

 into the question of terrestrial magnetism in connexion with compass 

 disturbance con amore, had cheerfully joined Captain Evans in all 

 his labours, and until his lamented death in 1872, was joint author 

 and fellow worker in all their investigations. 



The writer cannot here refrain from quoting words which have 

 already appeared in connexion with this subject, and which so well 

 express the connexion between the two men.* 



" The subject was one which called for the combination of practical 

 sagacity and experience, with refined scientific method, and if 

 Archibald Smith was stronger on the one side, Captain Evans was 

 his master on the other ; nor was either of them without large powers, 

 even in the special department of their joint labours, in which he 

 owned the supremacy of his friend ; it was an undertaking which 

 called for the united efforts of just two such men as were fortunately 

 brought together to do it, and the result has been a triumph to 

 England, and a blessing to the world, which will preserve the 

 memories of its authors as long as the ocean remains the highway 

 of Englishmen and the world." 



The first work which Captain Evans produced after his appointment 

 as Chief of the Compass Department, was a chart of the world, 

 showing the curves of equal magnetic declination ; by which the 

 navigator was enabled to obtain with approximate accuracy in any 

 part of the ocean the deviation of his compass from the magnetic 

 meridian ; this chart was published by the Admiralty in 1858. 



* "Nature," January 14th. 



