scholarly journals XIII. Results deduced from the measures of terrestrial magnetic force in the horizontal plane, at the Royal Observatoy, Greenwich, from 1841 to 1876

1885 ◽  
Vol 176 ◽  
pp. 679-689
Keyword(s):  
Royal Society ◽  
Horizontal Plane ◽  
Magnetic Force ◽  
Proper Part ◽  
Royal Navy ◽  
Sliding Windows ◽  
Short Statement ◽  
Royal Observatory ◽  
Real Progress ◽  
Made In

In offering to the Royal Society some results deduced from the systems of magnetic observation and magnetic self-registration established several years since at the Royal Observatory, Greenwich, during a portion of the time in which I presided over that institution, I think it desirable to premise a short statement on the origin of the Magnetic Department of the Royal Observatory, and on the successive steps in its constitution. It appears to have been recognised many years ago, that magnetic determinations would form a proper part of the business of the Royal Observatory. When I commenced residence at the Royal Observatory, at the end of 1835, I found in the garden a small wooden building, evidently intended for the examination of compasses, perhaps of the size of those used in the Royal Navy. But the locality was inconvenient, and the structure was totally unfit for any delicate magnetic purpose; for instance, the balance-weights of the sliding windows were of iron. For some preliminary experiments a small observatory was borrowed from Captain Fitzroy, but no real progress was made in magnetism.

V. Results deduced from the measures of terrestrial magnetic force in the horizontal plane, at the Royal Observatory, Greenwich, from 1841 to 1876

1886 ◽  
Vol 39 (239-241) ◽  
pp. 255-258
Keyword(s):  
Royal Society ◽  
Horizontal Plane ◽  
Magnetic Force ◽  
Short Statement ◽  
Royal Observatory

In offering to the Royal Society some results deduced from the systems of magnetic observation and magnetic self-registration established several years since at the Royal Observatory, Greenwich, during a portion of the time in which I presided over that institution, I think it desirable to premise a short statement on the origin of the Magnetic Department of the Royal Observatory, and on the successive steps in its constitution.

scholarly journals I. Note on an extension of the comparison of magnetic disturbances with magnetic effects inferred from observed terrestrial galvanic currents; and discussion of the magnetic effects inferred from galvanic currents on days of tranquil magnetism

1870 ◽  
Vol 18 (114-122) ◽  
pp. 183-185
Keyword(s):  
Magnetic Force ◽  
The Self ◽  
Instrumental Error ◽  
Magnetic Disturbance ◽  
Magnetic Effects ◽  
Royal Observatory ◽  
Moderate Disturbance ◽  
Magnetic Disturbances ◽  
Made In

The author, after referring to his paper in the Philosophical Transactions for 1868 on the comparison of Magnetic Disturbances inferred from Galvanic Currents recorded by the Self-registering Galvanometers of the Royal Observatory of Greenwich with the Magnetic Disturbances registered by the Magnetometers, on 17 days, states that he had now undertaken the examination of the whole of the Galvanic Currents recorded during the establishment of the Croydon and Dartford wires (from 1865 April 1 to 1867 October 24). The days of observation were divided into three groups,—No. I containing days of considerable magnetic disturbance, and therein including not only the 17 days above mentioned, but also 36 additional days, No. 2 containing days of moderate disturbance, of which no further use was made, and No. 3 containing the days of tranquil magnetism. The comparisons of the additional 36 disturbed days were made in the same manner as those of the preceding 17 days, and the inferences were the same. The results were shown in the same manner, by comparison of curves, which were exhibited to the Society. The points most worthy of notice are, that the general agreement of the strong irregularities, Galvanic and Magnetic, is very close, that the galvanic irregularities usually precede the magnetic, in time, and that the northerly magnetic force appears to be increased. The author remarks that no records appeared open to doubt as regards instrumental error, except those of western declination; and to remove this he had compared the Greenwich Curves with the Kew Curves, and had found them absolutely identical.

scholarly journals IX. Experiments to determine the difference in the number of vibrations made by an invariable pendulum in the Royal Observatory at Greenwich, and in the house in London in which Captain Kater’s experiments were made

1829 ◽  
Vol 119 ◽  
pp. 83-102 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Royal Society ◽  
Knife Edge ◽  
Capillary Action ◽  
Royal Observatory ◽  
The Difference ◽  
Made In

These experiments were made in compliance with a wish of the Council of the Royal Society, expressed in the following minute, dated December 13th 1827: “That Captain Sabine be requested to ascertain the difference in the number of vibrations of a pendulum between Mr. Browne’s house in London and the Royal Observatory at Greenwich.” The invariable pendulum employed to accomplish the proposed object was of the usual materials and form, new for the occasion, and numbered 12. The thermometer was the same that I had used in my former pendulum experi­ments; its graduation is described in the volume containing the account of those experiments, pages 182—187. The ball of the thermometer was sus­pended at both stations midway between the knife edge and the centre of the weight of the pendulum. The height of the barometer in the observations at Greenwich was taken by the standard barometer of the Observatory, which is in a room on the same floor as the pendulum room: in those at London it was taken by Mr. Browne’s barometer placed in the room in which the observa­tions were made. Mr. Browne’s barometer being compared with the standard of the Greenwich observatory, by means of an intermediate portable barometer, was found to require a correction of + 0.066 to make it agree with the indications of the Greenwich standard corrected for capillary action. This correction is consequently applied.

A Royal Society appointment with Venus in 1769: the voyage of Cook and Banks in the Endeavour In 1768-1771 and its botanical results

1969 ◽  
Vol 24 (1) ◽  
pp. 64-90 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Pacific Ocean ◽  
Royal Society ◽  
The Sun ◽  
Royal Navy ◽  
The Earth ◽  
The Pacific ◽  
The Pacific Ocean ◽  
Set Up ◽  
George Iii ◽  
Made In

A little over two hundred years ago a number of serious and learned men in Copenhagen, London, Paris, St Petersbourg, Stockholm and elsewhere, men who were academicians, Fellows of the Royal Society, Lords of the Admiralty, politicians and the like, had been thinking seriously and learnedly about the behaviour of Venus, not, of course, about Venus as represented coldly and chastely by the marble statues being imported from Italy or more warmly in the paintings of Boucher and his contemporaries, but about her far distant planet which was calculated to pass across the disk of the Sun in 1769 and not to make another such transit until 1874. Observations of the 1769 transit at widely separated stations would provide, it was hoped, the means of calculating the distance of the Earth from the Sun. The Royal Society in London, having set up in November 1767 a sub-committee ‘to consider the places proper to observe the coming Transit of Venus’ and other particulars relevant to the same, presented a memorial to King George III outlining possible benefits to science and navigation from observations made in the Pacific Ocean and received in return the promise of £4000 and a suitable ship provided by the Royal Navy (8).

scholarly journals I.—Account of some Experiments made in Different Parts of Europe, on Terrestrial Magnetic Intensity, particularly with reference to the Effect of Height

1839 ◽  
Vol 14 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-29 ◽  
Author(s):  
James D. Forbes
Keyword(s):  
Royal Society ◽  
Horizontal Plane ◽  
Magnetic Intensity ◽  
Magnetic Needle ◽  
Different Parts ◽  
Made In

1. The Council of the Royal Society of Edinburgh having, on my application in 1832, entrusted me with Hansteen's Magnetic Intensity Apparatus, in their possession, I feel it to be my duty to communicate to the Society the results then and subsequently obtained with it.2. The instrument consists of a mahogany box 5 inches long, 4 broad, and 2 deep, with sides and top of glass, having also a wooden tube, screwing into the top, for containing a silk-worm's fibre about 5 inches long, by which the magnetic needle is suspended so as to place itself horizontally, and after being caused to deviate from its point of rest, the time of any given number of oscillations in a horizontal plane is measured,—whilst a graduated circle in the bottom of the box indicates its arc of vibration.

XXIX. On the tides of Bombay and Kurrachee

1868 ◽  
Vol 158 ◽  
pp. 685-696 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Royal Society ◽  
Diurnal Tide ◽  
Semidiurnal Tide ◽  
Royal Observatory ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Engineering Survey ◽  
Continuous Curves ◽  
Made In

The tides on the coasts of India present a marked difference from those on our own coasts in the large amount of diurnal inequality to which they are subject. My attention was first directed to the subject in the course of an engineering survey of the Harbour of Kurrachee which I made in 1857-58, when I obtained between three and four months’ continuous observations, a copy of which is deposited with the Royal Society. Subsequently I obtained from the Admiralty, through the kindness of Captain Burdwood, R. N., the loan of the records of three years’ observations taken at Bombay in 1846, 1847, and 1848. Of these I plotted in a series of continuous curves the records for 1846, and deposited them, at the Astronomer Royal’s request, at the Royal Observatory, Greenwich. These records, however, are not perfect. They were made by a self-acting machine, the adjustment of which does not appear to have been always accurately pre­served; and I hope that they will be superseded as data for investigation by a better record 'for the year 1868. Taking them as they were, however, I discussed them to obtain the semimonthly curves of semidiurnal tide, and also formulæ for the approxi­mate determination of diurnal tide.

scholarly journals XI. On the diurnal and annual inequalities of terrestrial magnetism, as deduced from observations made at the Royal Observatory, Greenwich, from 1858 to 1863; being a continuation of a communication on the diurnal inequalities from 1841 to 1857, printed in the Philosophical Transactions, 1863. With a note on the lunodiurnal and other lunar inequalities, as deduced from observations extending from 1848 to 1863

1869 ◽  
Vol 159 ◽  
pp. 413-424
Keyword(s):  
Royal Society ◽  
Principal Part ◽  
General Character ◽  
Terrestrial Magnetism ◽  
Royal Observatory ◽  
Mean Time ◽  
Made In

The paper which I have the honour now to submit to the Royal Society is similar, in its general character, to that which was printed by the Society in the Philosophical Transactions for 1863, as containing in a contracted form the results of very extensive observations which have been printed, and of detailed calculations founded on them which are prepared for printing, in the legitimate organ of publication of the observa­tions made in the Royal Observatory. For the principal part of the work, the results are here exhibited to the eye in the shape of diagrams. The instruments employed are precisely the same which were used in the second part of the former investigation, from 1848 to 1857, mounted in the same place, and treated in the same manner; and the observations are reduced by application of the same for­mulæ. The only difference in the form of exhibition is, that Greenwich Mean Time is here exclusively adopted instead of Göttingen Mean Time, which was used in the former paper. It will be remembered that the longitude of Göttingen is 0 h 39 m 46 s. 5 East of Greenwich. The nominal time, therefore, of the occurrence of a phenomenon is less in the results now presented than in those of the former paper; or, the position on the curves of the figures 1, 2, 3, &c. for hours of time is more advanced than in the former paper, by 40 m nearly.

Halley the Londoner

1993 ◽  
Vol 47 (2) ◽  
pp. 163-177 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Royal Society ◽  
Extended Family ◽  
Public Life ◽  
Royal Navy ◽  
Royal Observatory ◽  
Charles Ii ◽  
William Iii ◽  
St Helena

Edmond Halley was a Londoner born and bred, he married into a London family and lived most of his life in or near London: London made his life and work possible. Halley’s public life is generally well known and documented, yet there are important gaps in the record. One was his survey and fortification of harbours in Dalmatia in 1703, at the direct command of Queen Anne, and his consequent election to the Savilian chair of geometry in 1704. 1 More generally, it has been recognized that Halley could not have done many of the things he did without influential support from powerful patrons. 2 In this article I suggest that the source of his patronage is to be found in his London connections. Halley moved in very influential circles from his schooldays at St Paul’s. He was in the party that chose the site of the Royal Observatory at Greenwich in 1675. 3 King Charles II himself promoted his expedition to St Helena and, on his return, Halley received the AM degree from Oxford at the command of Charles. It was Halley, rather than Pepys, the close associate of James II and President of the Royal Society, who presented Principia to the King. Halley seems at first to have come under suspicion from William III but had the support of Queen Mary for his later Atlantic and Channel cruises, on which, although a civilian, he was in command of Paramore and commissioned as a post-captain in the Royal Navy. His Adriatic surveys were at the direct command of Queen Anne. I believe that to understand how Halley could rely on such support we must look at his London background and connections, and in this article I consider his extended family, his links with the Tower and his associations with the London trading companies, in the early part of his life before he went to Oxford in 1704.

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