According to Dr. Whewell (“History of Induc. Sciences,” 1859, Vol. II. p. 226), the conclusions reached by Hansteen respecting the position of the four magnetic “poles” excited so much interest in his own country that the Norwegian Storthing, or Parliament, by a unanimous vote provided funds for a magnetic expedition which he was to conduct along the north of Europe and Asia, and this they did at the very time when, strange to say, they refused to make a grant to the King for building a palace at Christiania. The expedition was made in 1828–1830, and verified Hansteen’s anticipations as to the existence of a region of magnetic convergence in Siberia, which he considered as indicating a “pole” to the north of that country. The results were published in Hansteen and Due’s “Resultate magnetischer ...” (“Magn., Astron. and Méteor. Obs. on Journey through Siberia”) which appeared in 1863.
In the Sixth Dissertation, Chap. VII of the “Encycl. Brit.,” it is said that, next to Prof. Hansteen, science is mainly indebted for the great extension of our knowledge of the facts and the laws of terrestrial magnetism to two illustrious German philosophers, Baron Alexander von Humboldt and Prof. Karl Friedrich Gauss (1777–1855). An account is therein given of Gauss’s individual investigations, as well as of the researches he made in conjunction with Wilhelm Eduard Weber (1804–1891), who was likewise a professor at Göttingen. Of Alex. von Humboldt, we have spoken fully under date 1799, and of Gauss and Weber, mention has already been made at Schilling (A.D. 1812).
The very valuable contributions of Gauss and Weber appear throughout all the many scientific publications of the period, notably in the “Abhandlung d. Gött. Geselsch. d. Wiss.,” their joint work being shown to advantage in the important “Resultate ... des Magnet. Vereins,” published in Leipzig, 1837–1843.[58]
References.—For M. Hansteen’s scientific papers and for an account of additional magnetic results obtained by himself and others, consult the eighth “Britannica,” Vols. I. p. 745; IV. p. 249; XIV. pp. 15, 23, 42 (experiment with M. Muschman), 50, 55, 57–64, et seq., for Morlet and others; Thomson’s “Outline of the Sciences,” London, 1830, pp. 546–548; Whewell, “History of the Induc. Sci.,” Vol. II. pp. 613, 615, also p. 219 for Yates and Hansteen; Johnson’s new “Univer. Encycl.,” 1878, Vol. III. pp. 231–234 for Morlet, etc.: Weld’s “Hist. of Roy. Soc.,” Vol. II. p. 435; “Edin. Jour. of Sci.,” London, 1826, Vols. I. pp. 87, 334; V. pp. 65–71, 218–222; “Report of Seventh Meeting British Association,” London, 1838, Vol. VI. pp. 76, 82; J. G. Steinhauser’s articles published between 1803 and 1821; Harris’ “Rudimentary Magnetism,” London, 1852, Part. III. pp. 38, 39, 111; Phil. Mag., Vol. LIX. p. 248, and Phil. Mag. or Annals, Vol. II. p. 334; “Zeitschr. f. pop. Mitth.,” I. p. 33; Schweigger’s Journal, 1813–1827; Poggendorff’s Annalen, 1825–1855; “Académie Royale de Belgique” for 1853, 1855, 1865; C. Hansteen and C. Fearnley, “Die Univ.-Sternwarte ...” 1849; Hansteen, Lundh and Muschman, “Nyt. Mag. for Naturvid,” 1823–1856. See likewise his biography in the “English Cyclop. Supplement,” pp. 642, 643; “Catal. Roy. Soc. Sc. Pap.,” Vol. III. pp. 167–172; Vol. VI. p. 681, Vol. VII. p. 905; Houzeau et Lancaster, “Bibl. Gén.,” Vol. II. p. 157; “Edin. Phil. Journal,” 1823, Vol. IX. p. 243; “Annual Rec. Sc. Disc.,” 1873, p. 683; 1875, p. 155; Knight’s “Amer. Mech. Dict.,” 1875, Vol. II. p. 1374, and eighth “Britan.,” Vol. XIV. p. 49, regarding Hansteen’s lines of no variation for 1787; Humboldt’s “Cosmos,” 1859, Vol. V. pp. 110–111, for the investigations of Hansteen, Sir Ed. Belcher and others, those of the last named being treated of at p. 493 of the Phil. Trans. for 1832; Noad, “Manual,” pp. 529, 530, 534, 616, 617, etc.; Appleton’s “New Am. Cycl.,” Vol. XI. p. 64.
A.D. 1819.—Hare (Robert) (1781–1858) who was for twenty-nine years Professor of Chemistry in the Pennsylvania University, publishes in Philadelphia “A New Theory of Galvanism, Supported by Some Experiments and Observations Made by Means of the Calorimotor ...” of which an English edition appears in London the same year. (A full review of this work is to be found more particularly at p. 206, Vol. LIV of the Philosophical Magazine; in the “Encycl. Metropol.,” Vol. IV (Galvanism), p. 222; in Ure’s “Dictionary of Chemistry,” Am. ed., article “Calorimotor”; at p. 187 of the Phil. Trans. for 1823; at pp. 409, 410, Vol. I of Gmelin’s “Chemistry,” and at pp. 413–423, Vol. I of Silliman’s Am. Jour. of Sci., the last named being accompanied by a very fine illustration of the Calorimotor.)
This apparatus, which has already been alluded to (Pepys, A.D. 1802), consists of sheets of zinc about 9 inches by 6, and of copper about 14 inches by 6, coiled around one another nearly half an inch apart; there being in all 80 coils, 2½ inches in diameter, which are let down by means of a lever into glass vessels containing the acid solution. Dr. Hare observes:
“Volta considered all galvanic apparatus as consisting of one or more electromotors, or movers of the electric fluid. To me it appeared that they were movers of both heat and electricity; the ratio of the quantity of the latter put in motion to the quantity of the former put in motion being as the number of the series to the superficies. Hence the word electromotor can only be applicable when the caloric becomes evanescent, and electricity almost the sole product, as in De Luc’s and Zamboni’s columns; and the word calorimotor ought to be used when electricity becomes evanescent and caloric appears the sole product.”
“It afterwards appeared quite natural,” remarks Mr. W. B. Taylor (Note B, “Mem. of Jos. Henry,” p. 376) “to distinguish these classes of effects by the old terms—‘intensity’ for electromotive force, and ‘quantity’ for calorimotive force. There is obviously a close analogy between these differences of condition and resultant, and the more strongly contrasted conditions of mechanical and chemical electricity; and indeed the whole may be said to lie in a continuous series, from the highest ‘intensity’ with minimum quantity, to the greatest ‘quantity’ with minimum intensity.”
Two years later (1821), Dr. Hare constructed his galvanic deflagrator. It consists of two pairs of troughs, each ten feet long, and containing 150 galvanic pairs, so arranged that the plates can all be simultaneously immersed into or withdrawn from the acid. Each pair turns on pivots made of iron, coated with brass or copper, and a communication is established between these and the voltaic series within by means of small strips of copper. The “Encycl. Brit.” gives a full description of the construction and working of the apparatus, as do also the “Encycl. Metropol.,” Vol. IV (Galv.), p. 176; Noad (“Manual,” pp. 266, 267); Gmelin (“Chemistry,” Vol. I. pp. 409, 410), and Silliman (“Journal of Sci. and Arts,” Vol. VII. p. 347). The first-named publication says of Dr. Hare’s deflagrator:
“A brilliant light, equal to that of the sun, was produced between charcoal points, and plumbago and charcoal were fused by Profs. Silliman and Griscom. By a series of 250, baryta was deflagrated, and a platina wire, three-sixteenths of an inch in thickness, ‘was made to flow like water.’ In the experiments with charcoal, the charcoal on the copper side had no appearance of fusion, but a crater-shaped cavity was formed within it, indicating that the charcoal was volatilized at this side and transferred to the other, where it was condensed and fused, the piece of charcoal at this pile being elongated considerably. This fused charcoal was four times denser than before fusion. In a letter from Prof. Silliman, which was transcribed in the Sc. Am. Sup. for Sept. 21, 1878, he says: ‘Undoubtedly the earliest exhibitions of electric light from the voltaic battery were those made with the deflagrators of Dr. Hare by Prof. Silliman at New Haven in 1822, and subsequently on a magnificent scale at Boston in 1834, when an arc of over five inches diameter was produced by the simultaneous immersion of 900 large-sized couples of Hare’s deflagrator. But no means had then been devised for the regulation of the electric light to render it constant, and although the writer as early as 1842 used this light successfully to produce daguerreotypes, the progress of invention had yet to make further use of the discovery of science before electrical illumination was possible.’”