52 
GREENLAND VOYAGE. 
to render any exertion for our relief or extrica¬ 
tion perfectly useless: but this total suspension 
of ordinary duties, gave time and opportunity for 
scientific researches. My attention, when thus 
unoccupied by the management of the ship, had 
for some time been employed in making-prepara¬ 
tions for experiments on an original mode of de¬ 
veloping magnetism in steel, the application of 
which might occasionally prove of considerable 
importance at sea. An account of some experi¬ 
ments on this subject, is already before the pu¬ 
blic * ; but the application of the fundamental 
process to the construction of powerful and ener¬ 
getic magnets, was only made on the present 
voyage. 
This fundamental process is the elicitation of 
magnetic energy by percussion. For this pur¬ 
pose, soft steel is employed, which is capable of 
retaining for some time the magnetic virtue de¬ 
veloped in it, instead of iron, in which it is ex¬ 
tremely evanescent, or hard steel in which it is 
with great difficulty produced. The first step in 
* See “ Description of a Magnetimeter,” &c. Edin¬ 
burgh Transactions, vol. ix. p 243.; and “ Experiments 
and Observations on the Development of Magnetical Pro¬ 
perties in Steel and Iron by Percussion,” Phil. Trans, for 
1822. 
