Page:A Treatise on Electricity and Magnetism - Volume 2.djvu/158

126 I. The more Regular Variations.

(1) The Solar variations, depending on the hour of the day and the time of the year.

(2) The Lunar variations, depending on the moon's hour angle and on her other elements of position.

(3) These variations do not repeat themselves in different years, but seem to be subject to a variation of longer period of about eleven years.

(4) Besides this, there is a secular alteration in the state of the earth' magnetism, which has been going on ever since magnetic observations have been made, and is producing changes of the magnetic elements of far greater magnitude than any of the variations of small period.

II. The Disturbances.

473.] Besides the more regular changes, the magnetic elements are subject to sudden disturbances of greater or less amount. It is found that these disturbances are more powerful and frequent at one time than at another, and that at times of great disturbance the laws of the regular variations are masked, though they are very distinct at times of small disturbance. Hence great attention has been paid to these disturbances, and it has been found that disturbances of a particular kind are more likely to occur at certain times of the day, and at certain seasons and intervals of time, though each individual disturbance appears quite irregular. Besides these more ordinary disturbances, there are occasionally times of excessive disturbance, in which the magnetism is strongly disturbed for a day or two. These are called Magnetic Storms. Individual disturbances have been sometimes observed at the same instant in stations widely distant.

Mr. Airy has found that a large proportion of the disturbances at Greenwich correspond with the electric currents collected by electrodes placed in the earth in the neighbourhood, and are such as would be directly produced in the magnet if the earth-current, retaining its actual direction, were conducted through a wire placed underneath the magnet.

It has been found that there is an epoch of maximum disturbance every eleven years, and that this appears to coincide with the epoch of maximum number of spots in the sun.

474.] The field of investigation into which we are introduced