Cosmos: A Sketch of the Physical Description of the Universe Part 18

[footnote] *Of amber (succinum, glessum) Pliny observes (x.x.xvii., 3), "Genera ejus plura. Attritu digitorum accepta caloris anima trahunt in se paleas ac folia arida quae levia sunt, ac ut magnes lapis ferri ramenta quoque." (Plato, 'in Timaeo', p. 80. Martin, 'Etude sur le Timee', t. ii., p. 343-346. Strabo, xv., p. 703, Casaub,; Clemens Alex., 'Strom.', ii., p.

370, where, singularly enough, a difference is made between [Greek words]) When Thales, in Aristot., 'de Anima', 1, 2, and Hippias, in Diog. Laert., i., 24, describe the magnet and amber as possessing a soul, they refer only to a moving principle.

The same words may be found in the literature of an Asiatic nation, and occur in a eulogium on the loadstone by the Chinese physicist Kuopho.*

[footnote] *"The magnet attracts iron as amber does the smallest grain of mustard seed. It is like a breath of wind which mysteriously penetrates through both, and communicates itself with the rapidity of an arrow." These are the words of Kuopho, a Chinese panegyrist on the magnet, who wrote in the beginning of the fourth century. (Klaproth, 'Lettre a M. A. de Humboldt, sur l'Invention de la Boussole', 1834, p. 125.)

I observed with astonishment, p 189 on the woody banks of the Orinoco, in the sports of the natives, that the excitement of electricity by friction was known to these savage races, who occupy the very lowest place in the scale of humanity. Children may be seen to rub the dry, flat, and shining seeds or husks of a trailing plant (probably a 'Negretia') until they are able to attract threads of cotton and pieces of bamboo cane. That which thus delights the naked copper-colored Indian is calculated to awaken in our minds a deep and earnest impression.

What a chasm divides the electric pastime of these savages from the discovery of a metallic conductor discharging its electric shocks, or a pile composed of many chemically-decomposing substances, or a light-engendering magnetic apparatus! In such a chasm lie buried thousands of years that compost the history of the intellectual development of mankind!

The incessant change or oscillatory motion which we discover in all magnetic phenomena, whether in those of the inclincation, declination, and intensity of these forces, according to the hours of the day and the night, and the seasons and the course of the whole year, leads us to conjecture the existence of very various and partial systems of electric currents on the surface of the Earth. Are these currents, as in Seebeck's experiments, thermo-magnetic, and excited directly from unequal distribution of heat? or should we not rather regard them as induced by the position of the Sun and by solar heat?*

[footnote] *"The phenomena of periodical variations depend manifestly on the action of solar heat, operating probably through the medium of thermo-electric currents induced on the Earth's surface. Beyond this rude guess, however, nothing is as yet known of their physical cause. It is even still a matter of speculation whether the solar influence be a princ.i.p.al or only a subordinate cause in the phenomena of terrestrial magnetism."

('Observations to be made in the Antarctic Expedition', 1840, p. 35.)

Have the rotation of the planets, and the different degrees of velocity which the individual zones acquire, according to their respective distances from the equator, any influence on the distribution of magnetism? Must we seek the seat of these currents, that is to say, of the disturbed electricity, in the atmosphere, in the regions of planetary s.p.a.ce, or in the polarity of the Sun and Moon? Galileo, in his celebrated 'Dialogo', was inclined to ascribe the parallel direction of the axis of the Earth to a magnetic point of attraction seated in universal s.p.a.ce.

If we represent to ourselves the interior of the Earth as fused and undergoing an enormous pressure, and at a degree of temperature the amount of which we are unable to a.s.sign, p 190 we must renounce all idea of a magnetic nucleus of the Earth. All magnetism is certainly not lost until we arrive at a white heat,* and it is manifested when iron is at a dark red heat, however different, therefore, the modifications may be which are excited in substances in their molecular state, and in the coercive force depending upon that condition in experiments of this nature, there will still remain a considerable thickness of the terrestrial stratum, which might be a.s.sumed to be the seat of magnetic currents.

[footnote] *Barlow, in the 'Philos. Trans.' for 1822, Pt. i., p. 117; Sir David Brewster, 'Treatise on Magnetism', p. 129. Long before the times of Gilbert and Hooke, it was taught in the Chinese work 'Ow-thea-tsou' that heat diminished the directive force of the magnetic needle. (Klaproth, 'Lettre a M. A. de Humboldt, sur l'Invention de la Boussole', p. 96.)

The old explanation of the horary variations of declination by the progressive warming of the Earth in the apparent revolution of the Sun from east to west must be limited to the uppermost surface, since thermometers sunk into the Earth, which are now being accurately observed at so many different places, show how slowly the solar heat penetrates even to the inconsiderable depth of a few feet. Moreover, the thermic condition of the surface of water, by which two thirds of our planet is covered, is not favorable to such modes of explanation, when we have reference to an immediate action and not to an effect of induction in the a?rial and aqueous investment of our terrestrial globe.

In the present condition of our knowledge, it is impossible to afford a satisfactory reply to all questions regarding the ultimate physical causes of these phenomena. It is only with reference to that which presents itself in the triple manifestations of the terrestrial force, as a measurable relation of s.p.a.ce and time, and as a stable element in the midst of change, that science has recently made such brilliant advances by the aid of the determination of mean numerical values. From Toronto in Upper Canada to the Cape of Good Hope and Van Diemen's Land, from Paris to Pekin, the Earth has been covered, since 1828, with magnetic observatories,* in which every regular p 191 or irregular manifestation of the terrestrial force is detected by uninterrupted and simultaneous observations. A variation p 192 of 1/40000th of the magnetic intensity is measured, and at certain epochs, observations are made at intervals of 2 1/2 minutes, and continued for twenty-four hours consecutively.

[footnote] *As the first demand for the establishment of these observatories (a net-work of stations, provided with similar instruments) proceeded from me, I did not dare to cherish the hope that I should live long enough to see the time when both hemispheres should be uniformly covered with magnetic houses under the a.s.sociated activity of able physicists and astronomers. This has, however, been accomplished, and chiefly through the liberal and continued support of the Russian and British governments.

[footnote continues] In the years 1806 and 1807, I and my friend and fellow-laborer, Herr Oltmanns, while at Berlin, observed the movements of the needle, especially at the times of the solstices and equinoxes, from hour to hour, and often from half hour to half hour, for five or six days and nights uninterruptedly. I had persuaded myself that continuous and uninterrupted observations of several days and nights (observatio perpetua) were preferable to the single observations of many months. The apparatus, a p.r.o.ny's magnetic telescope, suspended in a gla.s.s case by a thread devoid of torsion, allowed angles of seven or eight seconds to be read off on a finely-divided scale, placed at a proper distance, and lighted at night by lamps. Magnetic perturbations (storms), which occasionally recurred at the same hour on several successive nights, led me even then to desire extremely that similar apparatus should be used to the east and west of Berlin, in order to distinguish general terrestrial phenomena from those which are mere local disturbances, depending on the inequality of heat in different parts of the Earth, or on the cloudiness of the atmosphere. My departure to Paris, and the long period of political disturbance that involved the whole of the west of Europe, prevented my wish from being then accomplished.

(OErsted's great discovery (1820) of the intimate connection between electricity and magnetism again excited a general interest (which had long flagged) in the periodical variations of the electro-magnetic tension of the Earth. Arago, who many years previously had commenced in the Observatory at Paris, with a new and excellent declination instrument by Gambey, the longest uninterrupted series of horary observations which we possess in Europe, showed by a comparison with simultaneous observations of perturbation made at Kasan, what advantages might be obtained from corresponding measurements of declination. When I returned to Berlin, after an eighteen years' residence in France, I had a small magnetic house erected in the autumn of 1828, not only with the view of carrying on the work commenced in 1806, but more with the object that simultaneous observations at hours previously determined might be made at Berlin, Paris, and Freiburg, at a depth of 35 fathoms below the surface. The simultaneous occurrence of the perturbations, and the parallelism of the movements for October and December, 1829, were then graphically represented. (Pogg., 'Annalen', bd.

xix., s. 357, taf. i.-iii.) An expedition into Northern Asia, undertaken in 1829, by command of the Emperor of Russia, soon gave me an opportunity of working out my plan on a larger scale. The plan was laid before a select committee of one of the Imperial Academies of Science, and, under the protection of the Director of the Mining Department, Count von Cancrin, and the excellent superintendence of Professor Kupffer, magnetic stations were appointed over the whole of Northern Asia, from Nicolajeff, in the line through Catharinenburg, Barnaul, and Nertschinsk, to Pekin.

[footnote continues] The year 1832 ('Gottinger gelehrte Anzeigen', st. 206) is distinguished as the great epoch in which the profound author of a general theory of terrestrial magnetism, Friedrich Gauss, erected apparatus, constructed on a new principle, in the Gottingen Observatory. The magnetic observatory was finished in 1834, and in the same year Gauss distributed new instruments, with instructions for their use, in which the celebrated physicist, Wilhelm Weber, took extreme interest, over a large portion of Germany and Sweden, and the whole of Italy. ('Resultate der Beob. des Magnetischen Verceins in Jahr' 1338, s. 135, and Poggend., 'Annalen.' bd.

x.x.xiii., s. 426.) In the magnetic a.s.sociation that was now formed with Gottingen for its center, simultaneous observations have been undertaken four times a year since 1836, and continued uninterruptedly for twenty-four hours. The periods, however, do not coincide with those of the equinoxes and solstices, which I had proposed and followed out in 1830. Up to this period, Great Britain, in possession of the most extensive commerce and the largest navy in the world, had taken no part in the movement which since 1828 had begun to yield important results for the more fixed ground-work of terrestrial magnetism. I had the good fortune, by a public appeal from Berlin which I sent in April 1836, to the Duke of Suss.e.x, at that time President of the Royal Society (Lettre de M. de Humboldt a S. A. R. le Duc de Suss.e.x, sur les moyens propres a perfectionner la connaissance du magnetisme terrestre par l'establiss.e.m.e.nt des stations magnetiques et d'observations correspondantes), to excite a friendly interest in the undertaking which it had so long been the chief object of my wish to carry out. In my letter to the Duke of Suss.e.x I urged the establishment of permanent stations in Canada, St. Helena, the Cape of Good Hope, the Isle of France, Ceylon, and New Holland, which five years previously I had advanced as good positions. The Royal Society appointed a joint physical and meteorological committee, which not only proposed to the government the establishment of fixed magnetic observatories in both hemispheres, but also the equipment of a naval expedition for magnetic observations in the Antarctic Seas. It is needless to proclaim the obligations of science to the great activity of Sir John Herschel, Sabine, Airy, and Lloyd, as well as the powerful support that was afforded by the British a.s.sociation for the Advancement of Science at their meeting held at Newcastle in 1838. In June, 1839, the Antarctic magnetic expedition, under the command of Captain James Clark Ross, was fully arranged; and now, since its successful return, we reap the double fruits of the highly important geographical discoveries around the south pole, and a series of simultaneous observations at eight or ten magnetic stations.

A great English astronomer and physicist has calculated* that the ma.s.s of observations which are in progress will acc.u.mulate in the course of three years to 1,958,000.

[footnote] *See the article on 'Terrestrial Magnetism', in the 'Quarterly Review' 1840, vol. lxvi., p. 271-312.

Never before has so n.o.ble and cheerful a spirit presided over the inquiry into the 'quant.i.tative' relations of the laws of the phenomena of nature.

We are, therefore, justified in hoping that these laws, when compared with those which govern the atmosphere and the remoter regions of s.p.a.ce, may, by degrees, lead us to a more intimate acquaintance with the genetic conditions of magnetic phenomena. As yet we can only boast of having opened a greater number of paths which may possibly lead to an explanation of this subject.

In the physical science of terrestrial p 193 magnetism, which must not be confounded with the purely mathematical branch of the study, those persons only will obtain perfect satisfaction who, as in the science of the meteorological processes of the atmosphere conveniently turn aside the practical bearing of all phenomena that can not be explained according to their own views.

Terrestrial magnetism, and the electro-dynamic forces computed by the intellectual Ampere,* stand in simultaneous and intimate connection with the terrestrial or polar light, as well as with the internal and external heat of our planet, whose magnetic poles may be considered as the poles of cold.**

[footnote] *Instead of ascribing the internal heat of the Earth to the transition of matter from a vapor-like fluid to a solid condition, which accompanies the formation of the planets, Ampere has propounded the idea, which I regard as highly improbable, that the Earth's temperature may be the consequence of the continuous chemical action of a nucleus of the metals of the earths and alkalies on the oxydizing external crust. "It can not be doubted," he observes in his masterly 'Theorie des Phenomenes Electro-dynamiques', 1826, p. 199, "that electro-magnetic currents exist in the interior of the globe, and that these currents are the cause of its temperature. They arise from the action of a central metallic nucleus, composed of the metals discovered by Sir Humphrey Davy, acting on the surrounding oxydized layer."

[footnote] **The remarkable connection between the curvature of the magnetic lines and that of my isothermal lines was first detected by Sir David Brewster. See the 'Transactions of the Royal Society of Edinburgh', vol. ix., 1821, p. 318, and 'Treatise on Magnetism', 1837, p. 42, 44, 47, and 268. This distinguished physicist admist two cold poles (poles of maximum cold) in the northern hemisphere, an American one near Cape Walker (73 degrees lat., 100 degrees W. long.), and an Asiatic one (73 degrees lat., 80 degrees E. long.); whence arise, according to him, two hot and two cold meridians, i.e., meridians of greatest heat and cold. Even in the sixteenth century, Acosts ('Historia Natural de las Indias', 1589, lib. i., cap. 17), grounding his opinion on the observations of a very experienced Portuguese pilot, taught that there were four lines without declination. It would seem from the controversy of Henry Bond (the author of 'The Longitude Found', 1676) with Beckborrow, that this view in some measure influenced Halley in his theory of four magnetic poles. See my 'Examen Critique de l'Hist. de la Geographie', t. iii., p. 60.

The bold conjecture hazarded one hundred and twenty-eight years since by Halley,* that the Aurora Borealis was a magnetic phenomenon, has acquired empirical certainty from Faraday's brilliant discovery of the evolution of light by magnetic forces.

[footnote] *Halley, in the 'Philosophical Transactions', vol. xxix. (for 1714-1716), No. 341.

The northern light is preceded by premonitory signs. Thus, in the morning before the occurrence of the phenomenon, the irregular horary course of the magnetic needle generally indicates a disturbance of the equilibrium in the distribution of p 194 terrestrial magnetism.*

[footnote] *[The Aurora Borealis of October 24th, 1847, which was one of the most brilliant ever known in this country, was preceded by great magnetic disturbance. On the 22d of October the maximum of the west declination was 23 degrees 10'; on the 23d the position of the magnet was continually changing, and the extreme west declinations were between 22 degrees 44' and 23 degrees 37';on the night between the 23d and 24th of October, the changes of position were very large and very frequent, the magnet at times moving across the field so rapidly that a difficulty was experienced in following it. During the day of the 24th of October there was a constant change of position, but after midnight, when the Aurora began perceptibly to decline in brightness, the disturbance entirely ceased. The changes of position of the horizontal-force magnet were as large and as frequent as those of the declination magnet, but the vertical-force magnet was at no time so much affected as the other two instruments. See 'On the Aurora Borealis, as it was seen on Sunday evening, October 24th, 1847, at Blackheath,' by James Glaisher, Esq., of the Royal Observatory, Greenwich, in the 'London, Edinburgh, and Dublin Philos. Mag and Journal of Science for Nov.', 1847, by John H. Morgan, Esq. We must not omit to mention that magnetic disturbance is now registered by a 'photographic' process: the self-registering photographic apparatus used for this purpose in the Observatory at Greenwich was designed by Mr. Brooke, and another ingenious instrument of this kind has been invented by Mr. F. Ronalds, of the Richmond Observatory.] -- Tr.

When this disturbance attains a great degree of intensity, the equilibrium of the distribution is restored by a discharge attended by a development of light "The Aurora* itself is, therefore, not to be regarded as an externally manifested cause of this disturbance, but rather as a result of telluric activity, manifested on the one side by the appearance of the light, and on the other by the vibrations of the magnetic needle."

[footnote] *Dove, in Poggend., 'Annalen', bd. xx., s. 341; bd. xix., s.

388. "The declination needle acts in very nearly the same way as an atmospheric electrometer, whose divergence in like manner shows the increased tension of the electricity before this has become so great as to yield a spark." See also, the excellent observations of Professor K?wmtz, in his 'Lehrbuch der Meteorologie', bd. iii., s. 511-519, and Sir David Brewster, in his 'Treatise on Magnetism', p. 280. Regarding the magnetic properties of the galvanic flame, or luminous arch from a Bunsen's carbon and zinc battery, see Ca.s.selmann's 'Beobachtungen' (Marburg, 1844), s. 56-62.

The splendid appearance of colored polar light is the act of discharge, the termination of a magnetic storm, as in an electrical storm a development of light -- the flash of lightning -- indicates the restoration of the disturbed equilibrium in the distribution of the electricity. An electric storm is generally confined to a small s.p.a.ce beyond the limits of which the condition of the atmospheric electricity remains unchanged. A magnetic storm, on the other hand, p 193 shows its influence on the course of the needle over large portions of continents, and, as Arago first discovered far from the spot where the evolution of light was visible. It is not improbable that, as heavily-charged threatening clouds, owing to frequent transitions of the atmospheric electricity to an opposite condition, are not always discharged, accompanied by lightning, so likewise magnetic storms may occasion far-extending disturbances in the horary course of the needle, without there being any positive necessity that the equilibrium of the distribution should be restored by explosion, or by the pa.s.sage of luminous effusions from one of the poles to the equator, or from pole to pole.

In collecting all the individual features of the phenomenon in one general picture, we must not omit to describe the origin and course of a perfectly developed Aurora Borealis. Low down in the distant horizon, about the part of the heavens which is intersected by the magnetic meridian, the sky which was previously clear is at once overcast. A dense wall of bank of cloud seems to rise gradually higher and higher, until it attains an elevation of 8 or 10 degrees. The color of the dark segment pa.s.ses into brown or violet; and stars are visible through the cloudy stratum, as when a dense smoke darkens the sky. A broad, brightly-luminous arch, first white, then yellow, encircles the dark segment; but as the brilliant arch appears subsequently to the smoky gray segment, we can not agree with Argelander in ascribing the latter to the effect of mere contrast with the bright luminous margin.*

[footnote] *Argelander, in the important observations on the northern light embodied in the 'Vortr?gen gehalten in der physikalish-okonomischen Gessellschaft zu Konigsberg', bd. i., 1834, s. 257-264.

The highest point of the arch of light is, according to accurate observations made on the subject,* not generally in the magnetic meridian itself, but from 5 degrees to 18 degrees toward the direction of the magnetic declination of the place.**

[footnote] *For an account of the results of the observations of Lottin, Bravais, and Siljerstrom, who spent a winter at Bosekop, on the coast of Lapland (70 degrees N. lat.), and in 210 nights saw the northern lights 160 times, see the 'Comptes Rendus de l'Acad. des Sciences', t. x., p. 289, and Martins's 'Meteorologie', 1843, p. 453. See also, Argelander in the 'Vortragen geh. in der Konigsberg Gessellschaft', bd. i., s. 259.

[footnote] **[Professor Challis of Cambridge, states that in the Aurora of October 24th, 1847, the streamers all converged toward a single point of the heavens, situated in or very near a vertical circle pa.s.sing through the magnetic pole. Around this point a corona was formed, the rays of which diverged in all directions from the center, leaving a s.p.a.ce free from light: its azimuth was 18 degrees 41' from south to east, and its alt.i.tude 69 degrees 54'. See Professor Challis, in the 'Athenaeum', Oct. 31, 1847.] -- Tr.

In the northern lat.i.tudes, p 196 in the immediate vicinity of the magnetic pole, the smoke-like conical segment appears less dark, and sometimes is not even seen. Where the horizontal force is the weakest, the middle of the luminous arch deviates the most from the magnetic meridian.

The luminous arch remains sometimes for hours together flashing and kindling in ever-varying undulations, before rays and streamers emanate from it, and shoot up to the zenith. The more intense the discharges of the northern light, the more bright is the play of colors, through all the varying gradations from violet and bluish white to green and crimson. Even in ordinary electricity excited by friction, the sparks are only colored in cases where the explosion is very violent after great tension. The magnetic columns of flame rise eithr singly from the luminous arch, blended with black rays similar to thick smoke, or simultaneously in many opposite points of the horizon, uniting together to torm a flickering sea of flame, whose brilliant beauty admits of no adequate description, as the luminous waves are every moment a.s.suming new and varying forms. The intensity of this light is at times so great, that Lowenorn (on the 29th of June, 1786) recognized the coruscation of the polar light n bright sunshine. Motion renders the phenomenon more visible. Round the point in the vault of heaven which corresponds to the direction of the inclination of the needle, the beams unite together to form the so-called corona, the crown of the northern light, which encircles the summit of the heavenly canopy with a milder radiance and unflickering emanations of light. It is only in rare instances that a perfect crown or circle is formed, but on its completion the phenomenon has invariably reached its maximum, and the radiations become less frequent, shorter, and more colorless. The crown and the luminous arches break up, and the whole vault of heaven becomes covered with irregularly-scattered, broad, faint, almost ashy-gray luminous immovable patches, which in their turn disappear, leaving nothing but a trace of the dark, smoke-like segment on the horizon. There often remains nothing of the whole spectacle but a white, delicate cloud with feathery edges, or divided at equal distances into small roundish groups like cirio-c.u.muli.