Cosmos: A Sketch of the Physical Description of the Universe, Vol. 1Humboldt, Alexander von
History
Cosmos: A Sketch of the Physical Description of the Universe, Vol. 1
Humboldt, Alexander von
Astronomy; Cosmography; Physical geography; Science -- History
In the former case, the simultaneous manifestation of the storm may serve,
within certain limitations, like Jupiter's satellites, fire-signals, and
well-observed falls of shooting stars, for the geographical determination of
degrees of longitude. We here recognize with astonishment that the
perturbations of two small magnetic needles, even if suspended at great
depths below the surface, can measure the distances apart at which they are
placed, teaching us, for instance, how far Kasan is situated east of
Gottingen or of the banks of the Seine. There are also districts in the
earth where the mariner, who has been enveloped for many days in mist,
without seeing either the sun or stars, and deprived of all means of
determining the time, may know with certainty, from the variations in the
inclination of the magnetic needle, whether he is at the north or the south
of the port he is desirous of entering.*
[footnote] *I have described, in Lametherie's 'Journal de Physique', 1804,
t. lix., p. 449, the application (alluded to in the text) of the magnetic
inclination to the determination of latitude along a coast running north and
south, and which, like that of Chili and Peru, is for a part of the year
enveloped in mist ('garua'). In the locality I have just mentioned, this
application is of the greater importance, because, in consequence of the
strong current running northward as far as to Cape Parena, navigators incur
a great loss of time if they approach the coast to the north of the haven
they are seeking. In the South Sea, from Callao de Lima harbor to Truxillo,
which differ from each other in latitude by 3 degrees 57' I have observed a
variation of the magnetic inclination amounting to 9 degrees (centesimal
division); and from Callao to Guayaquil, which differ in latitude by 9
degrees 50', a variation of 23.5 degrees. (See my 'Relat. Hist.', t. iii.,
p. 622.) At Guarmey (10 degrees 4' south lat.), Huaura (11 degrees 3' south
lat.), and Chancay (11 degrees 4' south lat.), Huaura (11 degrees 3' south
lat.), and Chancay (11 degrees 32' south lat.), the inclinations are 6.80
degrees, 9 degrees, and 10.35 degrees of the centesimal division. The
determination of position by means of the magnetic inclination has this
remarkable feature connected with it, that where the ship's course cuts the
isoclinalline almost perpendicularly, it is the only one that is independent
of all determination of time, and consequently, of observations of the sun
or stars. It is only lately that I discovered, for the first time, that as
early as at the close of the sixteenth century, and consequently hardly
twenty years after Robert Norman had invented the inclinatorium, William
Gilbert, in his great work, 'De Magnete', proposed to determine the latitude
by the inclination of the magnetic needle. Gilbert ('Physiologia Nova de
Magnete', lib. v., cap. 8, p. 200) commends the method as applicable "aëre
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