;--an incident then so alarming to him
and his company, that, but for the inflexible and persevering spirit
of this intrepid and daring mariner, it would have sunk them into
despair, and buried the New World for ages upon ages longer from the
knowledge of the Old. Centuries have again passed away, disclosing
gradually new properties of the magnet to the ardent and eager
pursuit of human curiosity, still stimulated by constant observation
of the phenomena connected with this metallic substance, dug from
the bowels of the earth, yet seeming more and more to elude or defy
all the ordinary laws of matter. Thus, in the process of observation
to ascertain the horizontal variation of the needle from its polar
direction, it was found that it differed in intensity in the
different regions of the earth and the seas; that its variations
were affected by different causes, some tending in the same
direction, alternately east and west, through a succession of years,
of ages, even of centuries, and others accomplishing their circle of
existence from day to day, perhaps from hour to hour, or at stated
hours of the day. It was found that there was a perpendicular as
well as a horizontal deviation from the polar direction; and it
became a matter of anxious inquiry to ascertain the intensity both
of the dip and variation of the needle at every spot on the surface
of the globe. It was inferred, from the different intensities of
variation in different latitudes, that there were magnetic poles not
coincident with those of the earth; and the northern of these poles
has been recently traced to its actual location by the British
circumnavigators, Parry and Ross.

"The attractive power, the polarity, the deviations from the polar
direction, horizontal and perpendicular, the varieties even of these
deviations, and the detection of the northern magnetic pole, have
still left materials for further observation, and suggested problems
for solution to the perseverance and ingenuity of the human mind.

"In the spring of 1836 that illustrious philosopher and statesman,
Baron Alexander Von Humboldt, addressed to the Duke of Sussex, then
President of the Royal Society, a letter upon the means of
perfecting the knowledge of terrestrial magnetism, by the
establishment of magnetic stations and corresponding observations;