This

preserve that position. The northern end dips very sensibly. happens in our hemisphere. In the southern it is the southern end which dips. It is clear, therefore, that if we travel from one hemisphere to the other we must find the northern dip of the needle gradually diminishing till at some point near the equator the needle is horizontal, and as we pass thence to southern regions a gradually increasing southern inclination is presented. This has been found to be the case, and the position of the line along which there is no inclination (called the magnetic equator) has been traced around the globe. It is not coincident with the earth's equator, but crosses that circle at an angle of twelve degrees, passing from north to south of the equator in long. 3° west of Greenwich, and from south to north in long. 187° east of Greenwich. The form of the line is not exactly that of a great circle, but presents here and there (and especially where it crosses the Atlantic) perceptible excursions from such a figure.

At two points on the earth's globe the needle will rest in a vertical position. These are the magnetic poles of the earth. The northern magnetic pole was reached by Sir J. G. Ross, and lies in 70° N. lat., and 263° E. long., that is, to the north of the American continent, and not very far from Boothia Gulf. One of the objects with which Ross set out on his celebrated expedition to the Antarctic Seas was the discovery if possible of the southern magnetic pole. In this he was not successful. Twice he was in hopes of attaining his object, but each time he was stopped by a barrier of land. He approached so near, however, to the pole, that the needle was inclined at an angle of nearly ninety degrees to the horizon, and he was able to assign to the southern pole a position in 75° S. lat., 154° E. long. It is not probable, we should imagine, that either pole is fixed, since we shall now see that the inclination, like the declination of the magnetic needle, is variable from time to time, as well as from place to place; and in particular, the magnetic equator is apparently subjected to a slow but uniform process of change.

Arago tells us that the inclination of the needle at Paris has been observed to diminish year by year since 1671. At that time the inclination was no less than 75°; in other words, the needle was inclined only 15° to the vertical. In 1791 the inclination was less than 71°. In 1831 it was less than 68°. In like manner the inclination at London has been observed to diminish, from 72° in 1786 to 70° in 1804, and thence to 68° at the present time.

It might be anticipated from such changes as these that the position of the magnetic equator would be found to be changing. Nay, we can even guess in which way it must be changing. For, since the inclination is diminishing at London and Paris, the magnetic equator must be approaching these places, and this (in the present position of the curve) can only happen by a gradual shifting of the magnetic equator from east to west along the true equator. This motion has been found to be really taking place. It is supposed that the movement is accompanied by a change of

form; but more observations are necessary to establish this interesting point.

Can it be doubted that while these changes are taking place, the magnetic poles also are slowly shifting round the true pole? Must not the northern pole, for instance, be further from Paris now that the needle is inclined more than 23° from the vertical, than in 1671, when the inclination was only 15°. It appears obvious that this must be so, and we deduce the interesting conclusion that each of the magnetic poles is rotating around the earth's axis.

But there is another peculiarity about the needle which is as noteworthy as any of those we have spoken about. We refer to the intensity of the magnetic action, the energy with which the needle seeks its position of rest. This is not only variable from place to place, but from time to time, and is further subject to sudden changes of a very singular character.

It might be expected that where the dip is greater, the directive energy of the magnet would be proportionably great. And this is found to be approximately the case. Accordingly the magnetic equator is very nearly coincident with the "equator of least intensity," but not exactly. As we approach the magnetic poles we find a more considerable divergence, so that instead of there being a northern pole of greatest intensity nearly coincident with the northern magnetic pole, which we have seen lies to the north of the American continent, there are two northern poles, one in Siberia nearly at the point where the river Lena crosses the Arctic circle, the other not so far to the north-only a few degrees north, in fact, of Lake Superior. In the south, in like manner, there are also two poles, one on the Antarctic circle about 130° E. long. in Adelie Island, the other not yet precisely determined, but supposed to lie on about the 240th degree of longitude, and south of the Antarctic circle. Singularly enough there is a line of lower intensity running right round the earth along the valleys of the two great oceans, "passing through Behring's Straits and bisecting the Pacific on one side of the globe, and passing out of the Arctic Sea by Spitzbergen and down the Atlantic on the other."

intensity of the magnetic action. It is greatest in December and

Colonel Sabine discovered that the varies during the course of the year. January in both hemispheres. If the intensity had been greatest in winter

one would have been disposed to have assigned seasonal variation of temperature as the cause of the change. But as the epoch is the same for both hemispheres we must seek another canse. Is there any astronomical element which seems to correspond with the law discovered by Sabine? There is one very important element. The position of the perihelion of the earth's orbit is such that the earth is nearest to the sun on about the 31st of December or the 1st of January. There seems nothing rashly speculative, then, in concluding that the sun exercises a magnetic influence on the earth, varying according to the distance of the carth from the sun. Nay, Sabine's results seem to point very distinctly to the law of variation. For, although the number of observations is not as yet very great, and the

extreme delicacy of the variation renders the determination of its amount very difficult, enough has been done to show that in all probability the sun's influence varies according to the same law as gravity—that is, inversely as the square of the distance.

That the sun, the source of light and heat, and the great gravitating centre of the solar system, should exercise a magnetic influence upon the earth, and that this influence should vary according to the same law as gravity, or as the distribution of light and heat, will not appear perhaps very surprising. But the discovery by Sabine that the moon exercises a distinctly traceable effect upon the magnetic needle seems to us a very remarkable one. We receive very little light from the moon, much less (in comparison with the sun's light) than most persons would suppose, and we get absolutely no perceptible heat from her. Therefore it would seem rather to the influence of mass and proximity that the magnetic disturbances caused by the moon must be ascribed. But if the moon exercises an influence in this way, why should not the planets? We shall see that there is evidence of some such influence being exerted by these bodies.

More mysterious if possible than any of the facts we have discussed is the phenomenon of magnetic storms. The needle has been exhibiting for several weeks the most perfect uniformity of oscillation. Day after day the careful microscopic observation of the needle's progress, has revealed a steady swaying to and fro, such as may be seen in the masts of a stately ship at anchor on the scarce-heaving breast of ocean. Suddenly a change is noted; irregular jerking movements are perceptible, totally distinct from the regular periodic oscillations. A magnetic storm is in progress. But where is the centre of disturbance, and what are the limits of the storm? The answer is remarkable. If the jerking movements observed in places spread over very large regions of the earth-and in some wellauthenticated cases over the whole earth-be compared with the local time, it is found that (allowance being made for difference of longitude) they occur precisely at the same instant. The magnetic vibrations thrill in one moment through the whole frame of our carth!

But a very singular circumstance is observed to characterize these magnetic storms. They are nearly always observed to be accompanied by the exhibition of the aurora in high latitudes, northern and southern. Probably they never happen without such a display; but numbers of auroras escape our notice. The converse proposition, however, has been established as an universal one. No great display of the aurora ever occurs without a strongly marked magnetic storm.

Magnetic storms sometimes last for several hours or even days.

Remembering the influence which the sun has been found to exercise upon the magnetic needle, the question will naturally arise, has the sun anything to do with magnetic storms? We have clear evidence that he has. On the 1st of September, 1859, Messrs. Carrington and Hodgson were observing the sun, one at Oxford and the other in London. Their scrutiny

was directed to certain large spots which, at that time, marked the sun's face. Suddenly, a bright light was seen by each observer to break out on the sun's surface and to travel, slowly in appearance, but in reality at the rate of about 7,000 miles in a minute, across a part of the solar disc. Now it was found afterwards that the self-registering magnetic instruments at Kew had made at that very instant a strongly marked jerk. It was learned that at that moment a magnetic storm prevailed at the West Indies, in South America, and in Australia. The signalmen in the telegraph stations at Washington and Philadelphia received strong electric shocks; the pen of Bain's telegraph was followed by a flame of fire; and in Norway the telegraphic machinery was set on fire. At night great auroras were seen in both hemispheres. It is impossible not to connect these startling magnetic indications with the remarkable appearance observed upon the sun's disc.

But there is other evidence. Magnetic storms prevail more commonly in some years than in others. In those years in which they prevail most frequently, it is found that the ordinary oscillations of the magnetic needle are more extensive than usual. Now when these peculiarities had been noticed for many years, it was found that there was an alternate and systematic increase and diminution in the intensity of magnetic action, and that the period of the variation was about eleven years. But at the same time a diligent observer had been recording the appearance of the sun's face from day to day and from year to year. He had found that the solar spots are in some years more freely displayed than in others. And he had determined the period in which the spots are successively presented with maximum frequency to be about eleven years. On a comparison of the two sets of observations it was found (and has now been placed beyond a doubt by many years of continued observation) that magnetic perturbations are most energetic when the sun is most spotted, and vice verså. For so remarkable a phenomenon as this none but a cosmical cause can suffice. We can neither say that the spots cause the magnetic storms nor that the magnetic storms cause the spots. We must seek for a cause producing at once both sets of phenomena. There is as yet no certainty in this matter, but it seems as if philosophers would soon be able to trace in the disturbing action of the planets upon the solar atmosphere the cause. as well of the marked period of eleven years as of other less distinctly marked periods which a diligent observation of solar phenomena is beginning to educe.

I City of Befuge.

To be well, to be ill, to be sad, to be cross; to feel jars that shake, pains that tear and burn, and weary nerves that shrink and flutter, or that respond so strangely and dully to the will that it seems almost as if we were scarcely ourselves, at times, when, longing to feel and to sympathize with the emotion of others, we are only conscious of a numb cold acquiescence in their gladness or pain: all this is in the experience of us all, of the most happy as well as of the least happy alike, of the softest and hardest hearted. Only with some it is the experience of an instant and with others of a lifetime.

The range of this mysterious gamut teaches us, perhaps, something of the secret of what others are feeling; and in the same way that the sick and unhappy may imagine what vigour, hope, love, the fervour of life and youth mean, to some, by its help, the fortunate may guess now and then at the sorrows of years, understand the hopelessness, the patience, the disappointment of a lifetime-guess at it for an instant as they stand by a sickbed or see the poor wayfarer lying by their path. There is a group I have now in my mind that many of us may have noticed of late-some tired people resting on the road-side, a sunset marsh beyond; they have lighted a fire of which the smoke is drifting in the still air, and the tired eye looks out at the spectator and beyond him in the unconscious simplicity of suffering. We all understand it, though we have perhaps never in all our lives rested for the night, wearied, by a ditch-side. It is so true to life that we who are alive instinctively recognize its truth and uncomplaining complaint.

The persons of whom I am going to write just now, are mostwise in these sadder secrets of life, which they have learnt by long years of apprenticeship. Poor souls! We have all come across them at one time or another. Sometimes we listen to their complaint, sometimes we don't; sometimes we put out a helping hand to pull them along, sometimes we get weary, and let them go. It would almost seem as if the range of the pity that we feel for others, for the same troubles at different times, were as wide and as changeful as the very experience from which sympathies most often spring. But although it is easy enough to help our brothers and sisters seven times-more easy than to forgive them, it is difficult enough for us individually to help them seventy times seven times, and in this must lie the great superiority of institutions over individual effort, of whom the kindness is left to chance and to good-natured impulse, instead of being part of a rule that works on in all tempers and at all times.

It seemed to me the other day that it was real help that was being given to some afflicted persons whom I was taken to see, at the Incurable