Magnetic instruments in the Canadian Arctic expeditions of Franklin, Lefroy, and Nares

References

• April 1819 . Copy in Letter Book , April , Cambridge : Scott Polar Research Institute . 27 henceforth SPRI, MS 248/276.
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• April 1819 . Copy in Letter Book , April , Cambridge : Scott Polar Research Institute . 27
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• McConnell , Anita . 1980 . Geomagnetic Instruments before 1900 , London : Harriet Wynter Ltd. . plate 4, showing an instrument in the Science Museum, London, Inv. no. 1916–6, Neg. no. 962.
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• 1818 . Instructions for the adjustments and use of the instruments intended for the northern expeditions, printed by order of the Royal Society 24 – 26 . London (p. 24)
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• Dollond's variation transit and Kater's' azimuth compass are both described, along with other magnetic instruments, in the seventh edition of Encyclopaedia Britannica 1842 art. Magnetism.
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• McConnell . 1980 . Geomagnetic Instruments before 1900 , 20 – 20 . London : Harriet Wynter Ltd. .
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• Sabine . 1819 . Observations on the Dip and Variation of the Magnetic Needle, and on the Intensity of the Magnetic Force; made during the late voyage in search of a North West Passage . Philosophical Transactions , 109 : 132 – 144 . (p. 132). The Science Museum, London, has a dip circle by Nairne & Blunt 1775, Inv. no. 1900–129, and a dip circle used by Henry Cavendish, Inv. no. 1930–903, as well as a dip circle by Nairne & Blunt for observations at sea, Inv. no. 1876–806.
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• SPRI MS 248/277 Franklin Narrative of a journey to the shores of the Polar Sea, in the years 1819, 20, 21 and 22 … With an appendix on various subjects relating to science and natural history London 1823
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• 1818 . Instructions for the adjustments and use of the instruments intended for the northern expeditions, printed by order of the Royal Society 14 – 14 . London
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• 1833 . Philosophical Transactions , 123 : 343 – 358 . (p. 343).
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• 1833 . Philosophical Transactions , 123 : 344 – 344 .
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• McConnell . 1980 . Geomagnetic Instruments before 1900 , London : Harriet Wynter Ltd. . fig. 10 and p. 21, and plate 3.
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• The Smithsonian Institution has a Gambey-type declinometer of c. 1830; see Multhauf R.P. Good G. A brief history with special reference to the United States and catalogue of the collections of the Museum of American History, Smithsonian Institution scheduled for publication by the Smithsonian in 1986, fig. 31.
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• The Smithsonian Institution has a Gambey-type declinometer of c. 1830; see Multhauf R.P. Good G. A brief history with special reference to the United States and catalogue of the collections of the Museum of American History, Smithsonian Institution fig. 32, shows the Smithsonian's variation transit of c 1840, marked Gambey à Paris.
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• Fox . 1834 . Notice of an Instrument for ascertaining various Properties of Terrestrial Magnetism, and affording a permanent Standard Measure of its Intensity in every Latitude . Philosophical Magazine , 4 : 81 – 88 . 3rd series Other descriptions are in e.g. J. B. Jordan, ‘Description and use of a dipping needle deflector invented by Robert Were Fox’, Annals of Electricity, 3 (1839), 288–97; Encyclopaedia Britannica, seventh edition, art. Magnetism. McConnell (footnote 3), plates 8 and 9, describes a Fox circle made by W. George, now in the Science Museum, London, Inv. no. 1908–97; the instrument probably dates from 1840 or later.
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• Herschel , J.F.W. , ed. 1851 . A Manual of Scientific Enquiry; prepared for the use of officers in Her Majesty's Navy; and travellers in general , second edition 20 – 20 . London
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• McConnell , A. 1984 . 19th-Century geomagnetic instruments and their makers . paper read at IV Scientific Instrument Symposium . October 1984 , Amsterdam. to be published in the Symposium's Proceedings.
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• Public Archives of Canada MG 24 H67 containing all Franklin-Fox letters quoted or cited.
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• Franklin . 1928 . Narrative of a second expedition to the shores of the Polar Sea in the years 1825, 1826, and 1827 London appendix VI, Back, ‘Journal’ SPRI MS 395/6.
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• Lefroy , Lady , ed. Autobiography of General Sir John Henry Lefroy … 26 – 26 . printed for private circulation (n.p., n.d.)
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• Stanley , Owen . Journal of a Voyage for the discovery of the N.W. Passage in H.M.S. Terror Captn. Geo Back … in the years 1836 1837 , University of Toronto . MS in Fisher Rare Book Library
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• June 1836 . Christie to Back from the Royal Military Academy June , 10 SPRI MS 395/87: [My son, James,] ‘is just returned from seeing your Instruments safely deposited at the Victualling Office Deptford: viz, Dollond's Instrument, belonging to the Admiralty, your own dipping Instr. and Hansteen's: and I trust you will receive them all safe’.
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• 1836 . Philosophical Magazine Vol. 9 , 523 – 525 . 3rd series 529–30.
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• Ross , J.C. 1847 . A voyage of discovery and research in the southern and Antarctic regions, during the years 1839–43 Vol. I , xxx – xxx . London 2 vols xxxiii; ‘Instructions for the Scientific Expedition to the Antarctic Regions, prepared by the President and Council of the Royal Society’, Philosophical Magazine, 3rd series, 15 (1839), 177–241, including ‘Account of the magnetical instruments to be employed, and of the mode of observation to be adopted, in the magnetical observatories about to be established by Her Majesty's Government’, pp. 224–41.
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• Herschel , J.F.W. , ed. 1851 . A Manual of Scientific Enquiry; prepared for the use of officers in Her Majesty's Navy; and travellers in general , second edition 20 – 20 . London
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• 1836 . Letter from Baron von Humboldt… . Philosophical Magazine , 9 : 42 – 53 . 3rd series
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• Cawood , J. 1979 . The magnetic crusade: science and politics in early Victorian Britain . Isis , 70 : 493 – 518 . ‘Terrestrial magnetism and the development of international collaboration in the early nineteenth century’, Annals of Science, 34 (1977), 551–87.
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• Sabine , E. 1850–53 . Observations made at the magnetical and meteorological observatory at Hobarton, in Van Diemen Island and by the Antarctic Naval Expedition Vol. I , ix – ix . London 3 vols quoted in A. D. Thiessen, ‘The founding of the Toronto Magnetic Observatory and the Canadian Meteorological Service’, The Journal of the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada, 34 (1940), 308–48, at 308. For the Van Diemen's Land observatory, see A. Savours [Mrs. Shirley] and A. McConnell, ‘The History of the Rossbank Observatory’, Annals of Science, 39 (1982), 527–64; pp. 546–51 describe standard procedures and instruments in the colonial observatories, and are the source for this account.
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• Gauss , C.F. and Weber , W. 1841 . Results of the Observations Made by the Magnetic Association in the year 1836 . Scientific Memoirs , 2 : 20 – 42 . translation in Taylor's Lloyd's observatory, and subsequent colonial observatories, did in fact come to deviate significantly from Gauss's model.
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• Lloyd . 1841 . Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy , 1 : 163 – 166 . 330–5.
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• Lloyd . 1841 . Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy , 1 : 547 – 547 . See also Report of the Committee of Physics and Meteorology of the Royal Society Relative to the Observations to be Made on the Antarctic Expedition and in the Magnetic Observatories (London, 1840).
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• Lefroy . Autobiography of General Sir John Henry Lefroy … 33 – 33 .
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• Lefroy . Autobiography of General Sir John Henry Lefroy … 35 – 35 .
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• BAAS report, reprinted in Philosophical Magazine 1838 12 119 121 3rd series Gauss's big instrument and its use are described in ibid., 2 (1833), 291–9. Lloyd published a series of papers on magnetic instruments and methods in the Proceedings and Transactions of the Royal Irish Academy: ‘On the declination instrument employed in the Magnetical Observatory of Dublin’, Proceedings, 1 (1836–40), 163–5; ‘Further development of a method of observing the Dip and Magnetic Intensity at the same time and with the same instrument’, Transactions, 17 (1837), 449–60—this is summarized in Encyclopaedia Britannica, seventh edition art. Magnetism; ‘On a new magnetical instrument for the measurement of the inclination and its changes’, Proceedings, 2 (1840–44), 210–7, 226–32; ‘On the theodolite magnetometer’, ibid., 608–13; ‘An account of a method of determining the total intensity of the earth's magnetic force in absolute measure applicable in high latitudes’, Proceedings, 4 (1847–50), 57–63.
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• Sabine , E. 1846 . Contributions to Terrestrial Magnetism.—No. VII . Philosophical Transactions , 136 : 238 – 238 .
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• Lefroy . Autobiography of General Sir John Henry Lefroy … 73 – 73 .
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• Lefroy . 1883 . Diary of a magnetic survey of a portion of the Dominion of Canada chiefly in the North-Western Territories executed in the years 1843–1844 London John Henry Lefroy, In Search of the Magnetic North. A Soldier-Surveyor's Letters from the North-West 1843–1844, edited by G. F. Stanley (Toronto, 1955); the original MSS are in the Public Record Office, Kew; Lefroy's manuscript journal is in Yale University Library, and I have used a microfilm in the Public Archives of Canada (henceforth PAC), M-2314.
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• Sabine . 1846 . Contributions to Terrestrial Magnetism.—No. VII . Philosophical Transactions , 136 : 240 – 240 . T. C. Robinson, referred to below as the supplier of needles for the Gambey inclinometer, had also made a dip circle used by Sir J. C. Ross, now in Science Museum Inv. no. 1876–789. The Science Museum has a non-protable bifilar magnetometer, Inv. no. 1876–841, and a Kew pattern unifilar magnetometer by Thomas Jones c. 1840, Inv. no. 1915–144 (see Figure 1).
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• Lefroy . 1883 . Diary of a magnetic survey of a portion of the Dominion of Canada chiefly in the North-Western Territories executed in the years 1843–1844 1 – 1 . London which is the source for the weights of the instruments—not a trivial point when everything had to be packed into canoes and carried across portages.
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• Herschel , J.F.W. , ed. 1851 . A Manual of Scientific Enquiry; prepared for the use of officers in Her Majesty's Navy; and travellers in general , second edition 34 – 49 . London
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• Riddell . 1840 . Magnetical Instructions for the Use of Portable Instruments London
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• Multhauf and Good . A brief history with special reference to the United States and catalogue of the collections of the Museum of American History, Smithsonian Institution C. J. B. Riddell, Magnetical instructions for the use of portable instruments … (London, 1844), p. 11.
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• Included in Great Britain, Parliament House of Commons Sessional Papers, Accounts and Papers 1847–48 41 no. 264
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• Royal Geographical Society (henceforth RGS) The New Arctic Expedition, Correspondence between the Royal Geographical Society and the Government London 1873
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• Deacon , M. and Savours , A. 1976 . Sir George Strong Nares (1831–1915) . Polar Record , 18 : 1 – 15 . G. Hattersley-Smith, ‘The British Arctic Expedition, 1875–76’, ibid., 17–26. G. S. Nares, Narrative of a Voyage to the Polar Sea during 1875–6 in II.M. Ships Alert and Discovery … With notes on the natural history edited by H. W. Feilden …, 2 vols (London, 1878).
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• RGS . 1875 . Arctic Geography and Ethnology. A Selection of Papers on Arctic Geography and Ethnology. Reprinted, and presented to the Arctic Expedition of 1875, by the President, Council, and Fellows of the Royal Geographical Society London Royal Society of London, Instructions for the Use of the Scientific Expedition to the Arctic Regions, 1875, suggested by the Arctic Committee of the Royal Society (London, 1875); Manual of the Natural History, Geology and Physics of Greenland and the Neighbouring Regions, edited by T. Rupert Jones (London, 1875).
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• Quoted by Hattersley-Smith The British Arctic Expedition, 1875–76 1976 18 24 24
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• The Barrow dip circle is also known as a Kew pattern dip circle, described and illustrated in McConnell Geomagnetic Instruments before 1900 Harriet Wynter Ltd. London 1980 plate 10 (see Figure 3 for an instrument in the Science Museum, Inv. no. 1889–23). There is a similar Barrow dip circle in the Scheepvaart Museum in Amsterdam, Inv. no. RS 399(2). This instrument was taken to the Arctic on a Dutch expedition in 1878; the scientific equipment on this expedition was closely similar to that used on Nares's expedition, and is shown in Figure 2. The instruments in that plate were described by W. F. J. Mörzer Bruyns at the III Scientific Instrument Symposium, Munich 1983, in a paper to be published in an appendix to De tocht met de Willem Barents naar de Noordelijke IJszee in 1878 (De Linschoten-Vereeniging, in press).
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• One of these instruments, circle no. 28 made by John Dover of Charlton, Kent, is now in the Scott Polar Research Institute, Cambridge (Figure 4). The instrument is in a box bearing the trade label of his son, A[1fred] W[alter] Dover [1857–1920], Mathematical Instrument Maker, 574 Woolwich Road, Charlton, Kent (Figure 5). See Stock John T. Laurie Philip S. John Dover, Instrument Maker (1824–1881) Technology and Culture 1980 21 51 55
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• A Report to the Hydrographer of the Admiralty, on the Results of the Magnetical Observations made by the Officers of the Arctic Expedition, 1875–1876, by Creak Staff-Commander E.W. attached to the Admiralty Compass Department', in Great Britain, Parliament Arctic Expedition, 1875–6, Journals and Proceedings… London 1877 119 119
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• Nares . private journal Vol. 1 , PAC MG29 B12
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• Nares . October 1875 . private journal Vol. 1 , October , PAC MG29 B12 26
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• Creak , Staff-Commander E.W. 1877 . “ attached to the Admiralty Compass Department', in Great Britain, Parliament ” . In Arctic Expedition, 1875–6, Journals and Proceedings… 122 – 122 . London
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• Creak , Staff-Commander E.W. March 1877 . “ attached to the Admiralty Compass Department', in Great Britain, Parliament ” . In Arctic Expedition, 1875–6, Journals and Proceedings… March , 119 – 119 . London 13
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• March 1876 . SPRI MS 249 March , 27
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