Autobiography of Sir George Biddell Airy, George Biddell Airy [dark books to read TXT] 📗

1860 to an enormous attendance in the Free Trade Hall." The following record of the Lecture is extracted from Dr E.J. Routh's Obituary Notice of Airy written for the Proceedings of the Royal Society. "At the meeting of the British Association at Manchester in 1861, Mr Airy delivered a Lecture on the Solar Eclipse of 1860 to an assembly of perhaps 3000 persons. The writer remembers the great Free Trade Hall crowded to excess with an immense audience whose attention and interest, notwithstanding a weak voice, he was able to retain to the very end of the lecture....The charm of Professor Airy's lectures lay in the clearness of his explanations. The subjects also of his lectures were generally those to which his attention had been turned by other causes, so that he had much that was new to tell. His manner was slightly hesitating, and he used frequent repetitions, which perhaps were necessary from the newness of the ideas. As the lecturer proceeded, his hearers forgot these imperfections and found their whole attention rivetted to the subject matter."

Of private history: "On Jan. 2nd there was a most remarkable crystallization of the ice on the flooded meadows at Playford: the frost was very severe.--From June 20th to Aug. 1st I was at the Grange near Keswick (where I hired a house) with my wife and most of my family.--From Nov. 5th to 14th I was on an expedition in the South of Scotland with my son Wilfrid: we walked with our knapsacks by the Roman Road across the Cheviots to Jedburgh.--On Dec. 21st I went to Playford."


1862

"The Report to the Board of Visitors states that 'A new range of wooden buildings (the Magnetic Offices) is in progress at the S.S.E. extremity of the Magnetic Ground. It will include seven rooms.'--Also 'I took this opportunity (the relaying of the water-main) of establishing two powerful fire-plugs (one in the Front Court, and one in the Magnetic Ground); a stock of fire-hose adapted to the "Brigade-Screw" having been previously secured in the Observatory.'--'Two wires, intended for the examination of spontaneous earth-currents, have been carried from the Magnetic Observatory to the Railway Station in the town of Greenwich. From this point one wire is to be led to a point in the neighbourhood of Croydon, the other to a point in the neighbourhood of Dartford. Each wire is to be connected at its two extremities with the Earth. The angle included between the general directions of these two lines is nearly a right angle.'--'The Kew unifilar magnetometer, adapted to the determination of the horizontal part of terrestrial magnetic force in absolute measure, was mounted in the summer of 1861; and till 1862 February, occasional observations (14 in all) were taken simultaneously with the old and with the new instrument. The comparison of results shewed a steady but very small difference, not greater probably than may correspond to the omission of the inverse seventh powers of distance in the theoretical investigation; proving that the old instrument had been quite efficient for its purpose.'--Great efforts had been made to deduce a law from the Diurnal Inequalities in Declination and Horizontal Force, as shewn by the Magnetic observations; but without success: the Report states that 'The results are most amazing, for the variation in magnitude as well as in law. What cosmical change can be indicated by them is entirely beyond my power of conjecture.'--'I have alluded, in the two last Reports, to the steps necessary, on the English side, for completing the great Arc of Parallel from Valencia to the Volga. The Russian portion of the work is far advanced, and will be finished (it is understood) in the coming summer. It appeared to me therefore that the repetition of the measure of astronomical longitude between Greenwich and Valencia could be no longer delayed. Two Assistants of the Royal Observatory (Mr Dunkin and Mr Criswick) will at once proceed to Valencia, for the determination of local time and the management of galvanic signals.'--'I now ask leave to press the subject of Hourly Time Signals at the Start Point on the attention of the Board, and to submit the advantage of their addressing the Board of Admiralty upon it. The great majority of outward-bound ships pass within sight of the Start, and, if an hourly signal were exhibited, would have the means of regulating their chronometers at a most critical part of their voyage. The plan of the entire system of operations is completely arranged. The estimated expense of outfit is _L2017_, and the estimated annual expense is _L326_; both liable to some uncertainty, but sufficiently exact to shew that the outlay is inconsiderable in comparison with the advantages which might be expected from it. I know no direction of the powers of the Observatory which would tend so energetically to carry out the great object of its establishment, viz. "the finding out the so much desired Longitude at Sea."'--The attention of the Visitors is strongly drawn to the pressure on the strength of the Observatory caused by the observation of the numerous small planets, and the paragraph concludes thus: 'I shall, however, again endeavour to effect a partition of this labour with some other Observatory.'--A small fire having occurred in the Magnetic Observatory, a new building of zinc, for the operation of naphthalizing the illuminating gas, is in preparation, external to the Observatory: and thus one of the possible sources of accidental fire will be removed.--Miss Sheepshanks added, through me, _L2000_ to her former gift: I transferred it, I believe, to the Master and Seniors of Trinity College."--In this year Airy contributed to the Royal Society two Papers, one "On the Magnetic properties of Hot-Rolled and Cold-Rolled Malleable Iron," the other "On the Strains in the Interior of Beams." He gave evidence before the Select Committee on Weights and Measures, and also before the Public Schools Commission.

In the latter part of 1862 a difference arose between Airy and Major-General Sabine, in consequence of remarks made by the latter at a meeting of the Committee of Recommendations of the British Association. These remarks were to the effect "That it is necessary to maintain the complete system of self-registration of magnetic phenomena at the Kew Observatory, because no sufficient system of magnetic record is maintained elsewhere in England"; implying pointedly that the system at the Royal Observatory of Greenwich was insufficient. This matter was taken up very warmly by Airy, and after a short and acrimonious correspondence with Sabine, he issued a private Address to the Visitors, enclosing copies of the correspondence with his remarks, and requesting the Board to take the matter of this attack into their careful consideration. This Address is dated November 1862, and it was followed by another dated January 1863, which contains a careful reply to the various points of General Sabine's attack, and concludes with a distinct statement that he (the Astronomer Royal) can no longer act in confidence with Sabine as a Member of the Board of Visitors.

Of private history: There were the usual short visits to Playford at the beginning and end of the year.--From June 28th to Aug. 5th he was in Scotland (chiefly in the Western Highlands) with his wife and his sons Hubert and Osmund. In the course of this journey he visited the Corryvreckan whirlpool near the island of Scarba, and the following paragraph relating to this expedition is extracted from his journal: "Landed in Black Mile Bay, island of Luing, at 10.30. Here by previous arrangement with Mr A. Brown, agent of the steam-boat company, a 4-oared boat was waiting to take us to Scarba and the Corryvreckan. We were pulled across to the island of Lunga, and rowed along its length, till we came to the first channel opening from the main sea, which the sailors called the Little Gulf. Here the sea was rushing inwards in a manner of which I had no conception. Streams were running with raving speed, sometimes in opposite directions side by side, with high broken-headed billows. Where the streams touched were sometimes great whirls (one not many yards from our boat) that looked as if they would suck anything down. Sometimes among all this were great smooth parts of the sea, still in a whirling trouble, which were surrounded by the mad currents. We seemed entirely powerless among all these."

In the beginning of this year (1862) the Duke of Manchester, in writing to the Rev. W. Airy, had said, "I wish your brother, the Astronomer Royal, could be induced to have investigations made as to whether the aspects of the Planets have any effect on the weather." This enquiry produced the following reply:

A subject like that of the occult influences of the planets (using the word occult in no bad sense but simply as meaning not _thoroughly_ traced) can be approached in two ways--either by the a priori probability of the existence of such influences, or by the a posteriori evidence of their effects. If the two can be combined, the subject may be considered as claiming the dignity of a science. Even if the effects alone are certain, it may be considered that we have a science of inferior degree, wanting however that definiteness of law and that general plausibility which can only be given when true causes, in accordance with antecedent experience in other cases, can be suggested.

Now in regard to the a priori probability of the existence of planetary influences, I am far from saying that such a thing is impossible. The discoveries of modern philosophy have all tended to shew that there may be many things about us, unknown even to the scientific world, but which well-followed accidents reveal with the most positive certainty. It is known that every beam of light is accompanied by a beam of chemical agency, totally undiscoverable to the senses of light or warmth, but admitting of separation from the luminous and warm rays; and producing photogenic effects. We know that there are disturbances of magnetism going on about us, affecting whole continents at a time, unknown to men in general, but traceable with facility and certainty, and which doubtless affect even our brains and nerves (which are indisputably subject to the influence of magnetism).

Now in the face of these things I will not undertake to say that there is any impossibility, or even any want of plausibility in the supposition that bodies external to the earth may affect us. It may well be cited in its favour that it is certain that the sun affects our magnetism (it is doubtful whether it does so _im_mediately, or mediately by giving different degrees of warmth to different parts of the earth), and it is believed on inferior evidence that the moon also affects it. It may therefore seem not impossible or unplausible that other celestial bodies may affect perhaps others of the powers of nature about us. But there I must stop. The denial of the impossibility is no assertion of the truth or probability, and I absolutely decline to take either side--either that the influences are real, or that the influences are unreal--till I see evidence of their effects.

Such evidence it is extremely difficult to extract from ordinary facts of observation. I have alluded to the sun's daily disturbance of the magnet as one of the most certain of influences, yet if you were to observe the magnet for a single day or perhaps for several days, you might see no evidence of that influence, so completely is it involved with other disturbances whose causes and laws are totally unknown.

I believe that, in addition to the effects ascribable to Newtonian gravitation (as general motion