WILLIAM SCORESBY, THE YoU>"GER. 
•211 
3"ears after liis death, they cover a period of forty-nine years, his first 
paper "Meteorological Journals," (Wliitby to Greenland and back), 
having been published in the Memoirs of the Wernerian Society in 
1810. Interesting as his narratives are when they deal with the fasci- 
nations of the extreme north, so wild and weird and solitary, and gTcatly 
as they touch us by their revelations of the daring and resource of 
the men who sought and found its secluded fastnesses, tliey yield in 
importance to the magnttical investigations which formed the chief 
labour and purpose of his life. These first come to the front when at 
29 years of age, he wrote his paper " On the anomaly in the varia- 
tion of the Magnetic Xeedle as observed on shipboard." This 
appeared in 1819 in the "Philosophical Transactions."' Thence- 
forward, throughout his life, whatever else in science awoke his 
interest, this remained his abiding passion. His papers and works 
on this subject are very numerous, and many of his writings pro- 
fessedly on other questions deal also with this. In 1822 lie pub- 
lished the results of experiments on " The development of magnetical 
properties in steel and iron by percussion and in the same year he 
wrote on " The deviation of the compass and its fatal eftects." It is 
not proposed to deal with his magnetical work in a paper so brief as 
this must be, but several of his papers were read at meetings of this 
Society, and will be found noticed on other pages. His conclusions 
are brought to a focus in the "Journal of a Voyage to Australia and 
Round the World for the purpose of magnetical research." This 
voyage was undertaken when he was 6-3 years of age, for the purpose 
of testing the correctness of theories which he had been long elabora- 
ting, and to settle some points in dispute between the Astronomer 
Royal, then Mr. G. B. Airy, and himself. These differences of opinion 
had reference to the development of magnetism by percussion, the 
influence of iron in ships upon the compass, and the variation of 
the compass with locality, ending in the reversal of polaritj^ between 
the northern and southern hemispheres. This was the last of the 
scientific enterprises to which Dr. Scoresby devoted himself, and he 
did not live to see the results of his investigations in print. The 
book was published after his death, with an admirable introduction 
by Mr. Archibald Smith, of Trinity College, Cambiidge, ^\ho sums 
