Abstract
In the beginning there were geomagnetic charts which were interesting mainly for seafaring nations. The first geomagnetic atlas was printed in London in 1776; its author was the mathematician, cartographer, and astronomer Samuel Dunn, whose aim had been to ameliorate the navigation especially to support the trading of England with the East Indies. The American John Churchman, however, was mainly surveyor; his magnetic atlas was published in four editions, in 1790, 1794, 1800, and 1804. Churchman was in contact with George Washington and with Thomas Jefferson, as far as his geomagnetic charts were concerned; he also became a member of the Academy of Sciences in St. Petersburg. Churchman was convinced that the magnetic pole in the north could be found in northern Canada. The Norwegian astronomer and physicist Christopher Hansteen was convinced that there were two magnetic poles in the north and two in the south; his atlas was published in 1819. One of the magnetic poles in the north should be in Siberia. Hansteen found support by the king of Sweden and Norway so that he undertook an expedition to Siberia (1828–1830). Carl Friedrich Gauss and Wilhelm Weber began to study geomagnetism in 1831: They believed that there were only two magnetic poles, one in the north and one in the south. They were able to calculate their positions by means of Gauss’ new theory of geomagnetism (1839); as sailors found out, their coordinates turned out to be nearly correct. Gauss’ and Weber’s Atlas is without doubt the most famous; it was published in Leipzig in 1840, including 18 geomagnetic charts. On two of these charts, equipotential lines were presented for the first time in history.
Keywords
- Stereographic Projection
- Magnetic Point
- Equipotential Line
- Magnetic Observatory
- American Philosophical Society
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Notes
- 1.
Comet 1759 III [sic], Great Comet, visible from January 7, 1760, to February 11, 1760.
- 2.
Rhumb line, i.e., loxodrome.
- 3.
In the original German: “Dieser seltene Atlas enthält sieben Deklinationskarten grossen Maassstabes in vorzüglicher technischer Ausführung; vielleicht sind magnetische Karten in grösserem Maassstabe niemals publicirt worden” (Hellmann 1895, p. 22).
- 4.
David Rittenhouse became a member of the “American Philosophical Society” in 1768; he was its president from 1791 to 1796. He was also an astronomer at the University of the State of Pennsylvania, from where the College of Philadelphia was founded in 1791.
- 5.
Stepan Jakovlevich Rumovskij (1734–1812), astronomer; in 1753 he became assistant at the Academy of Sciences in St. Petersburg; during the years 1754 to 1756 he was guest scholar of Leonhard Euler in Berlin; in 1756 he succeeded Michail Lomonosov as director of the Geographical Department at the Academy of Sciences in St. Petersburg; in 1763 he became extraordinary and in 1767 ordinary professor at the Academy; during the years 1800–1803, he acted as its vice-president.
- 6.
His correct name his Kononov and not Konoff. Aleksej Kononovich Kononov (1766–1795), physicist; since 1789 he was assistant and since 1795 extraordinary professor at the Academy of Sciences in St. Petersburg.
- 7.
The princess Yekaterina Romanovna Dashkova (1743–1810) was directress of the Academy of Sciences in St. Petersburg from 1783 to 1796.
- 8.
The Academy of Sciences in St. Petersburg had posed the following prize question for the year 1793: to present a magnetic chart of the world for the beginning of the nineteenth century, where the magnetic poles were indicated. This chart should be similar to the “Tabula nautica,” published by Edmond Halley in 1701 (Procès-verbaux 1911, pp 256–258). The original text was published in Latin and in Russian; a German translation in Reich and Roussanova (2012), p. 142.
- 9.
Wolfgang Ludwig Krafft (1743–1814), physicist at the Academy of Sciences in St. Petersburg.
- 10.
Johann Albrecht Euler.
- 11.
Pavel Petrovich Bakunin (1776–1805), since 1794 vice-director of the Academy of Sciences in St. Petersburg, from 1796 to 1798 director.
- 12.
Christian Gottlieb Kratzenstein: “Mappa exhibens declinationes acus magneticae ad initium saeculi decimi noni pro obtinendo praemio ab Academia Scientiarum imperiali Petropolitana ad annum 1793 proposito.” Kept at the State Library in Berlin, shelf mark 2 ∘ Kart. W 750. This map was accompanied by Kratzenstein’s essay “Tentamen, resolvendi problema geographico-magneticum a perillustri Academia imperiali Petropolitana in annum 1793 propositum” (St. Petersburg 1798).
- 13.
William Mountaine (ca.1700–1779); James Dodson (ca.1705–1757); Christopher Middleton (died in 1770).
- 14.
A hand-drawn map still exists; see Enebakk and Johansen (2011, between the pages 32 and 33).
- 15.
State and University Library Göttingen, Gauss library no. 130 (Churchman) and no. 856 (Hansteen).
- 16.
Anonymus: Über die von Gauß entdeckte allgemeine Theorie des Erdmagnetismus [Review]. In: Leipziger Allgemeine Zeitung, August 6, 1839, no. 218, supplement, p. 2566.
- 17.
In the original German: “Mein verehrter Freund, Herr Professor Weber, der keine Aufopferung scheuet, wo es gilt der Wissenschaft einen Dienst zu leisten, unternahm es, eine solche Versinnlichung durch eine Anzahl von Karten zu veranstalten, die in grösster Vollständigkeit alle magnetischen Verhältnisse für die ganze Erdoberfläche, so wie jene Theorie sie ergiebt, graphisch darzustellen. […] Diese Erklärung erschöpft alles, was zum Verständnis der Karten und zur Beurtheilung des Nutzens, welchen sie leisten können, nöthig ist, so vollständig, dass mir nichts hinzuzusetzen übrig bleibt als der Wunsch, dass diese mühsame und verdienstliche Arbeit bei den Freunden der Naturwissenschaften gerechte Anerkennung finden möge” (Gauss Werke vol. 12, pp. 377–378).
- 18.
In the original German: “[…] (wie Planeten- und Cometenbahnen durch ihre Elemente) […]. Der gegenwärtige Atlas des Erdmagnetismus eröffnet also die Reihe von Atlassen, welche in angemessenen Zwischenzeiten erscheinen sollen, um von nun an die Grunddata der Geschichte des Erdmagnetismus vollständig und übersichtlich vor Augen zu legen. Auf die Geschichte der vergangenen Zeit kann hier nicht eingegangen werden” (Gauss Werke vol. 12, pp. 404–405).
- 19.
In the original German: das “nötighste und nützlichste auszulesen, und auf eine kurze, jedoch leichte und deutliche Art denen Geneigten Liebhabern dieser herrlichen Wissenschaften (sc. der mathematischen) in die Hände zu liefern” (Mayer 1745, Vorwort).
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Acknowledgements
The authors want to say thank you very much to the following persons and institutions: Henrik Dupont, the Royal Library of Copenhagen; Wolfgang Crom, Steffi Mittenzwei, and Holger Scheerschmidt, the State Library in Berlin, department of maps; and Bärbel Mund and Helmuth Rohlfing, the State and University Library Göttingen, department of manuscripts and rare books.
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Reich, K., Roussanova, E. (2014). Gauss’ and Weber’s “Atlas of Geomagnetism” (1840) Was not the first: the History of the Geomagnetic Atlases. In: Freeden, W., Nashed, M., Sonar, T. (eds) Handbook of Geomathematics. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-27793-1_94-1
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