The modern investigation of the wandering of the Earth’s axis of rotation, considered as a physical problem relating to the actual non-rigid Earth, may be said to have been initiated in Lord Kelvin’s address to the Physical Section of the British Association in 1876. After referring to the scrutiny of the recorded observations of change of latitudes, conducted by Peters in 1841 and independently by Maxwell in 1851, in search of the regular Eulerian free period of 306 days which would belong to a rigid Earth, with negative results, he insisted that the irregular motions brought out in these analyses are not merely due to instrumental imperfections but represent true motions of the Pole, due to displacement of terrestrial material. For example, he estimates that existing shifts of material, of meteorological type, are competent to produce displacements of the axis of rotation ranging from ½ to 1/20 of a second of arc. A sudden shift of material on the Earth will not at once affect the axis of rotation, but will start it into motion round the altered axis of inertia, with a period of 306 days if the Earth were rigid, which will go on displacing the Pole until it is damped out by the frictional effects of the tidal motions thus originated. A radius of rotation of 1 second of arc would raise an ocean tide of the same period as the rotation, having as much as 11 cm. of maximum rise and fall. Thus the motion of the Pole is to be considered as continually renewed by meteorological and other displacements, as it is damped off by tidal and elastic friction; it was therefore, perhaps, not to be expected that it would show much periodicity, though the movements were eminently worthy of close investigation. Their nature was examined more closely by Newcomb at Kelvin’s request; but not much more had been done regarding their cause when Chandler announced that the records of changes of latitude did actually indicate a period of precession—of 427 days, however, instead of the Eulerian period of 306 days, which, if any, had previously been taken for granted. Soon after, in 1890, observations were organised systematically by the International Geodetic Union on the motion of Prof. Foerster, of Berlin; and already, in 1891, he was able to inform Lord Kelvin that a comparison of European observations with synchronous ones made at Honolulu gave direct proof of his conclusion of 1876 (
supra
), “ that irregular movements of the Earth’s axis to the extent of half a second may be produced by the temporary changes of sea level due to meteorological causes.” In the following year the synchronous observations had already indicated periodicity, apparently in about 385 days, considerably less than Chandler’s estimate, which, however, longer observation has since confirmed substantially. Lord Kelvin remarks in his next annual address as follows:—“ Newcomb, in a letter which I received from him last December, gave what seems to me undoubtedly the true explanation of this apparent discrepance from dynamical theory, attributing it to elastic yielding of the Earth as a whole. He added a suggestion, especially interesting to myself, that investigation of the periodic variations of latitude may prove to be the best means of determining approximately the rigidity of the Earth. As it is, we have now for the first time what seems to be a quite decisive demonstration of elastic yielding of the Earth as a whole, under the influence of a deforming force, whether of centrifugal force round a varying axis, as in the present case, or of tide-generating influences of the Sun and Moon, with reference to which I first raised the question of elastic yielding of the Earth’s material many years ago.” But “when we consider how much water falls on Europe and Asia during a month or two of rainy season, and how many weeks or months must pass before it gets to the sea, and where it has been in the interval, and what has become of the air from which it fell, we need not wonder” that the amplitudes of the polar wanderings “should often vary by 5 or 10 metres in the course of a few weeks or months.”
2. On Vortex Motion
