1876.] 
Physics. 
417 
in the attempts to reach the North Pole, the same routes have been conti- 
nually adopted with little variation, and all else overlooked. To be sure 
some of those Expeditions had specially the sad objeCt of seeking the remains 
of Franklin’s disastrous Expedition. In these, the employment of the sledge 
attained that extraordinary development which has excited such universal 
wonder and imitation. But where the sledge stands out prominent, scientific 
research can play but a secondary part. The journeys occupy the best time 
in spring and, autumn, and never admit of that repose which is essential to 
thorough observation. To what extent scientific research has been neglected 
in the greed for discovery, the best proof is that it is only two years that the 
first party has wintered for purposes of science in the Archipelago of Spitzbergen, 
geographically well known and approachable even in 8o° lat. every year 
almost without obstacle, although these islands form one of the most im- 
portant and favourably situated points for observation in the Arctic regions. 
It is to the Expeditions to Spitzbergen and Siberia, fitted out at comparatively 
small cost, that we owe our most thorough studies of the flora and fauna of 
this and the antediluvial world, of the effects of the ArCtic conditions on 
animal and vegetable life, &c. A second cause of inadequate results lies in 
this — that all Expeditions have been single and independent, and afford no 
synchronous observations for comparison. Where and whenever the forces of 
Nature, and the physical phenomena which they produce, are the objedt of 
study, simultaneous observations on many points are a fundamental condition 
of success. In peopled countries, this condition in a degree fulfils itself over 
the greatest possible extent of surface, through the multitude of chance ob- 
servers. In the Polar regions the observer must depend on himself; the 
simplest and most important data are wanting; for instance, the extent of 
territory covered by a phenomenon. In a far higher degree is this true in 
regard to those phenomena not perceptible by the senses, and only perceived 
by the aid of instruments. Nothing but simultaneous and most careful obser- 
vations, made at numerous stations more or less widely separated, can yield 
decisive results. After Gauss and Weber had introduced the synchronous 
magnetic tcrmdays, the science of Terrestrial Magnetism very soon burst the 
narrow bounds, in which until then it had been restrained. Animated by their 
success, England established her colonial observatories, and by them proved 
the subjection to natural laws of all magnetic phenomena; but none of these 
stations reached the ArCtic regions, the most northern being in latitude 6i°. 
However interesting and important their observations are, still they do not 
suffice to give us that view of the joint aCtion of the combined forces of ter- 
restrial magnetism in high latitudes — the extensive home of disturbance — 
which is absolutely indispensable to a sound theory. They leave us in the 
dark as to the position of the centres of disturbance, as to the limits of parti- 
cular movements, as to their synchronism at different distances as to the 
manner in which the separate oscillations exhibit themselves along the same 
parallel in different longitudes. Hence all conclusions as to the influence of 
local circumstances upon the strength and character of the disturbances fail. 
The English observations have proved that perturbations at various places in 
various years cannot be compared, since, for instance in Toronto, they, in one 
year, amounted for the declination to three times, and for the horizontal in- 
tensity to six times, as much as in another. It would therefore lead to utterly 
false conclusions if the Toronto, Sitka, or Athabasca observations of different 
years be compared in the matter of intensity. What may be said of mag- 
netic disturbances is equally applicable to the northern light. There are 
many reasons to believe that this phenomenon in high northern latitudes has 
but a very local character, a point only to be decided by synchronous observa- 
tions. For here also it would be false to compare different years at different 
points with each other. Different places the same year, or different years for 
the same places, can only be compared. Through the frequent negleCt of this 
axiom in analysing auroral phenomena many an error has crept in. The 
entire meteorology of our day rests upon comparison ; all the successes of 
which it can boast — the laws of storms, the theories of the winds — are results 
of synchronous observations. The average values of the meteorological con- 
VOL. VI. (N.S.) 2 0 
