hiquiries concerning the Magnetism of the Earth. 121 
certain remarkable numbers, to be found in the Greek and 
Oriental astronomy. We stated already, that 860, 1304, 1740, 
4609 years are the times respectively in which the four points 
of convergence are supposed to perform their revolution round 
the north and south poles. By a slight alteration, those num-i 
bers become 864, 1296, 1728, 4320, or 2 x 432, 3 x 432, 4 x 
432, 10 X ^82. Now, among the sacred numbers of the In- 
dians, Babylonians, Greeks and Egyptians, said to depend on 
certain combinations of natural events, this 432 seems to be 
one of the most important According to the Brahminical 
mythology, the world’s duration is divided into four periods, 
the first equal to 432,000 years, the second 2 x 432,000, the 
third 3 x 432,000, the fourth 4 x 432,000, — in all, (1 + 2+3 
+ 4, or 10) X 432,000. It is farther worthy of remark, that 
the sun’s mean distance from the earth is 216 (or radii of 
the sun; the moon’s mean distance 216 radii of the moon: 
and, what is still more striking, 60 x 432 — 25920, the smallest 
number divisible at once by all the four periods ; and hence the 
shortest time in which all the four points can accomplish a cycle 
and return to the same state as at first, coincides exactly with 
ihe period in which the precession of the equinoxes will amount 
to a complete circle^ reckoning- that precession at one degree in 
seventy-two years, as observation requires. 
. Pursuing the idea of magnetism being connected with astro- 
nomy, Mr Hansteen afterwards observes : As to the origin of 
those magnetic axes, we may suppose them either to have been 
produced along with, the earth itself, or at a later epoch. Ac- 
cording to the first hypothesis, no cause for their change of po- 
sition is discoverable ; according to the last, they must either 
have resulted from the earth alone or from some exterior force. 
If the axes sprung from the interior energy of the earth itself, 
their change of position still seems hardly susceptible of expla- 
nation, and the tendency to unite manifested by the opposing 
forces, points to a strong outward excitement as requisite for sepa- 
rating them, even granting such a separation to be possible. 
For these reasons, it appears most natural to seek their origin 
in the sun, the source of all living activity ; and our conjec- 
* Schuber^. 
