scholarly journals II. On the law of disturbance and the range of the diurnal variation of magnetic declination near the magnetic equator, with reference to the moon’s hour-angle

1862 ◽  
Vol 11 ◽  
pp. 298-302

The discovery by Dr. Lamont of a "decennial” period in the range of the solar diurnal variation of magnetic declination, naturally leads to the question whether a similar law may not exist for the lunar diurnal variation; the question is also of importance in connexion with the theory of the cause of these variations.

1872 ◽  
Vol 7 ◽  
pp. 756-758
Author(s):  
J. A. Broun

The author gives the results derived from different discussions of nearly eighty thousand observations, made hourly during the eleven years 1854 to 1864. They are as follows:—1. That the lunar diurnal variation consists of a double maximum and minimum in each month of the year.2. That in December and January the maxima occur near the times of the moon's upper and lower passages of the meridian; while in June and July they occur six hours later, the minima then occurring near the times of the two passages.3. The change of the law for December and January to that for June and July does not happen, as in the case of the solar diurnal variations, by leaps in the course of a month (those of March and October), but more or less gradually for the different maxima and minima.


1860 ◽  
Vol 10 ◽  
pp. 475-484

This variation, first obtained by M. Kreil, next by myself, and afterwards by General Sabine, presents several anomalies which require careful consideration, and especially a careful examination of the methods employed to obtain the results. The law obtained seems to vary from place to place even in the same hemisphere and in the same latitude, and this to such an extent, that, for example, when the moon is on the inferior meridian at Toronto it produces a minimum of westerly declination; while for the moon on the inferior meridian of Prague and Makerstoun in Scotland it produces a maximum of westerly declination. No two places have as yet given exactly the same result; though the result for each place has been confirmed by the discussion of different periods. In order to obtain the lunar diurnal action, it has been usual to consider the magnetic declination at any time as depending on the sun’s and moon’s hour-angles and on irregular causes. Thus, if at conjunction, H 0 be the variation due to the sun on the meridian, and h 0 be that due to the moon on the meridian, H, the variation for the sun at 1 h , h 1 for the moon on the meridian of 1 h , and so on; it is supposed that we may represent the variations for a series of days by the following expressions, where the nearest values of h to the whole hour-angles are given:-


1872 ◽  
Vol 26 (4) ◽  
pp. 735-757
Author(s):  
J. A. Broun

1. The lunar diurnal variation of magnetic declination as first discovered by Kreil, depended on too few observations to be free from the errors introduced by irregular disturbing causes. The independent discovery of the lunar action on the magnetic needle made afterwards by myself, was liable to the same criticism; but the agreement of the results obtained, both for the magnetic declination and the horizontal force, was sufficiently great to give a considerable value to the conclusion, that the magnetic needle obeys a diurnal law, depending on the moon's hour angle, both as to its direction and the force with which it is directed. This conclusion was farther confirmed in the discussion first made by myself, for the lunar diurnal variation of the vertical magnetic force, which gave, within an hour, the same epochs of maxima and minima as those obtained previously by me for the horizontal component.


1867 ◽  
Vol 24 (3) ◽  
pp. 669-690
Author(s):  
John Allan Broun

The first observations of the diurnal variation of magnetic declination, made near the equator, seem to have been those of Mr Macdonald, who observed in 1794–95 at Fort Marlborough, Sumatra, 3° 46′ S., and at St Helena. Two conclusions seem to have been deduced from these observations—1st, That near the equator the range of the diurnal variation was much smaller than in Europe; 2d, That the needle moved in opposite directions south of the equator and in Europe. This latter conclusion was made use of by M. Arago, in his report made in 1821, on the “Voyage de l'Uranie,” as the base of a hypothesis that there must be a line betwixt the two hemispheres on which the magnetic needle moves neither east nor west—that is, remains stationary. M. de Freycinet's observations showed that this line was not the terrestrial equator, and M. Arago supposed it must be the magnetic equator.


1868 ◽  
Vol 16 ◽  
pp. 59-60

I received late last night No. 91 of the Proceedings of the Royal Society, and desire to offer the following remarks on the abstract of a paper by Mr. Neumayer which I find therein (vol. xv. p. 414). Mr. Neumayer is evidently unacquainted with the Note by me, read to the Royal Society of London in 1861 (Proc. Roy. Soc. vol. x. p. 475), in which I stated as result of the discussions of five years’ observations at Trevandrum (near the magnetic equator) that the lunar-diurnal variation of magnetic declination became inverted, like the solar-diurnal variation, when the sun passed from one hemisphere to the other, both the solar- and lunar-diurnal variations depending on the position of the sun.


The paper deals with the phenomena exhibited by the magnetic declination at Kew from 1890 to 1900. The magnetograph curves have been measured on every day of this period, whether disturbed or undisturbed, and the data from days of the different species are contrasted. Diurnal inequalities are got out for ordinary days, excluding those of large disturbance, and separately for the highly disturbed days, and the differences between these, and the points wherein they differ from the corresponding inequalities from quiet days, are investigated. The disturbed days show a well-marked regular diurnal variation, which differs in many notable respects from that observed on ordinary days.


It has long been known that the diurnal variation of the magnetic needle is in an opposite direction in the southern, to what it is in the northern hemisphere; and it was therefore proposed as a pro­blem by Arago, Humboldt and others, to determine whether there exists any intermediate line of stations on the earth where those diurnal variations disappear. The results recorded in the present paper are founded on observations made at St. Helena during the five consecutive years, from 1841 to 1845 inclusive; and also on similar observations made at Singapore, in the years 1841 and 1842; and show that at these stations, which are intermediate between the northern and southern magnetic hemispheres, the diurnal variations still take place; but those peculiar to each hemisphere prevail at opposite seasons of the year, apparently in accordance with the position of the sun with relation to the earth’s equator.


My dear Sir, The Annales de Chimie et de Physique for March last contains a letter from M. De la Rive to M. Arago, in which a theory is proposed, professing to explain on physical principles the general phenomena of the diurnal variation of the magnetic declination, and, in particular, the phenomena observed at St. Helena and at the Cape of Good Hope, described in a paper communicated by me to the Royal Society in 1847, and which has been honoured with a place in the Philosophical Transactions. Although I doubt not that the inadequacy of the theory proposed by M. De la Rive for the solution of this interesting problem will be at once recognised by those who have carefully studied the facts which have become known to us by means of the exact methods of investigation adopted in the magnetic observatories of recent establishment, yet there is danger that the names of De la Rive and Arago, held in high and deserved estimation as authorities on such subjects, attached to a theory, which moreover claims reception on the ground of its accordance with “well-ascertained facts” and “with principles of physics positively established,” may operate prejudicially in checking the inquiries which may be in progress in other quarters into the causes which really occasion the phenomena in question; I have thought it desirable therefore to point out, in a very brief communication, some of the important particulars in which M. De la Rive’s theory fails to represent correctly the facts which it professes to explain, and others which appear to me to be altogether at variance with, and opposed to it.


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