13. Ashley Place | Nov. 24 | 59
Dear Tyndall,
If you will kindly take the trouble to read the 1st page of my paper in the Phil Trans. for 1852. Art. VIII (page i the vol. 103)1 you will see that it was the circumstance of my having ascertained the existence of a decennial period in the frequency of occurrence and aggregate amount of deflection proved by the magnetic storm, (or disturbance) in different years, which led me to connect the discovery which was wholly due to my own researches, with the decennial period observed by Schwabe2 in the Solar Spots—and if you will further kindly take the trouble (and I am sure you will not grudge the trouble where the object is to do justice to one who pursues the same path of inductive inquiry as yourself) to refer to p. 127 in the Vth Art. of the Phil. Trans. for 18513 near the bottom, you will see that my discovery of the decennial period in the magnetic storm was no accidental circumstance;—but was the result of a premeditated and previously announced mode of enquiry, on which I had been engaged for some years before, with the express purpose of ascertaining whether any period of the kind existed or not.
You will see in page 118 of my paper in 1852 that I have distinctly noticed the priority of publication of Lamont’s4 table of the periodical variation5 of the range of the Solar Diurnal variation of the Declination.
My paper was delivered to the Secretary of the Royal Society on March 18. 1852, & contains 4 similar tables to the one which Lamont printed in Pogg.6 on the preceding Dec 23rd (1851) for Toronto & Hobarton, and also tables of the Decennial variations of the Solar Diurnal variations of the Inclination & Total Force at Toronto & Hobarton. No doubt Lamont's publication of the one element on the one station preceded mine of the 3 elements at the two stations by nearly 3 months: But neither Lamont, nor any other magnetician here or elsewhere,7 has ever to this day ascertained the existence or non-existence of the decennial period of the magnetic storms. The object & method by which the object was attained were my own; the connexion of the decennial period so discovered with the of the Sun Spots was my own: & when I published them I added the decennial period of the Solar-diurnal variation far more extensively described than it had been, or has been since by any one.
Sincerely yours | Edward Sabine
RI MS JT/1/S/17
RI MS JT/1/TYP/4/1312
Phil Trans. for 1852. Art. VIII (page i the vol. 103): ‘On Periodical Laws discoverable in the mean effects of the larger Magnetic Disturbances—No 2’, Phil. Trans., 124 (1852), pp. 103–24.
Schwabe: Samuel Heinrich Schwabe (1789–1875), a German astronomer known for his solar observations. He proposed that sunspots followed a ten-year periodicity.
p. 127 in the Vth Art. of the Phil. Trans. for 1851: ‘On periodical laws discoverable in the mean effects of the larger magnetic disturbances’, Phil. Trans., 141 (1851), pp. 123–39.
Lamont’s: see letter 1777, n. 2.
table of the periodical variation: see Lamont, ‘Ueber den allmäligen Kraftverlust der Magnete, mit besonderer Rücksicht auf die Bestimmung der Variationen der erdmagnetischen Intensität’, Poggend. Annal., 84 (1851), pp. 440–4.
Lamont printed in Pogg: see n. 5.
But neither Lamont, nor any other magnetician here or elsewhere: Sabine further discussed the differences between his and Lamont’s observations in letter 1777, dated 17 April 1861.
Please cite as “Tyndall1661,” in Ɛpsilon: The John Tyndall Collection accessed on