Expedition and Experiment

• Main Author: Gillin, Edward J.
• Format: Book Part
• Language: English
• Published: Oxford University PressOxford 2023
• Subjects: Antarctic; Canada; Antarc*
• Online Access: http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780198890959.003.0006; https://academic.oup.com/book/chapter-pdf/58157204/oso-9780198890959-chapter-6.pdf

Abstract This chapter examines how, between 1841 and 1843, Edward Sabine and Robert Were Fox collaborated to transform the British Magnetic Scheme into a truly global scientific experiment. Specifically, they worked to turn the collection of magnetic data from around the world into a system of synchronized measurement. This took place through a series of new expeditions, building on the success of James Clark Ross’s 1839–43 Antarctic voyage. Yet the results from this were mixed. While voyages to the Caribbean and Americas went well, the 1841 Niger Expedition was a disaster, with tropical disease ravishing the crew and forcing the venture’s speedy termination. Likewise, Henry Lefroy’s attempt to use Fox dipping needles to measure magnetic phenomena overland, across Canada, showed the limitations of this instrument. Throughout these trials, Fox busied himself in Falmouth, working to regulate and improve his dipping needles. For all that Fox and Sabine conceived of the British Magnetic Scheme as a systematized scientific project, such work on a global scale was, as this chapter demonstrates, immensely capricious.