The period has not yet arrived for reaping the fruits of all the labor carried on in the magnetic observatories at home and abroad, but already certain results have been deduced from the observations which are highly interesting. It appears that if the globe be divided into an eastern and a western hemisphere by a plane coinciding with the meridians of 100° and 280°, the western hemisphere, or that comprising the Americas and the Pacific Ocean, has a much higher magnetic intensity distributed generally over its surface than the eastern hemisphere, containing Europe and Africa, and the adjacent part of the Atlantic Ocean. The distribution of the magnetic intensity in the intertropical regions of the globe affords evidence of two governing magnetic centres in each hemisphere. The highest magnetic intensity which has been observed is more than twice as great as the lowest. It had long been known that in Europe the north end of a magnet suspended horizontally (meaning by the north end that which is directed toward the north) moves to the east from the night until between seven and eight o’clock in the morning, when an opposite movement commences, and the north end of the magnet moves to the west. Recent observations have shown that a similar movement takes place at the same hours of local time in North America, and that it is general in the middle latitudes of the northern hemisphere; but to show the capricious nature of magnetism, it may be mentioned, that although in the southern portion of the globe the movement of the magnet in the contrary direction is constant throughout the year, yet at St. Helena the peculiar feature of the diurnal is, that during one half of the year the movement of the north end of the magnet corresponds in direction with the movement which is taking place in the northern hemisphere, while in the other half of the year the direction corresponds with that which is taking place in the southern hemisphere. Another striking result of these investigations is the estimate of the total magnetic power of the earth as compared with a steel bar magnetized one pound in weight. This proportion is calculated as 8,464,000,000,000,000,000,000 to 1, which, supposing the magnetic force uniformly distributed, will be found to amount to about six such bars to every cubic yard of the earth’s surface.