Rensselaer Republican, Volume 19, Number 39, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 2 June 1887 — The Pole and Its Torch. [ARTICLE]

The Pole and Its Torch.

When located by Sir James Ross in 1831, the north magnetic pole was on the west side of the peninsula of Boothia Felix, some fourteen hundred miles nearer to us than the geographical pole or -earth’s axis. Since then, hoxvever, its position must have changed some hundreds of miles, as, from some unknown cause, it is not stationary but is moving westward at a rate w hich takes it around the earth on a particular parallel in pne thousand to two thousand years. The needle of the compass now points due north on a meridian passing through Western Dakota or Eastern Montana, and turns to about northwest in England, though at the time the mariner’s compass was brought from China the needle pointed near north from England. The aurora borealis, like other magnetic phenomena, follows the same westward course 35 latitude, and is manifested to a certain distance from the magnetic pole. It does not reach Pekin, on the opposite side of the earth from us. though the display is often very brilliant at Philadelphia in the same latitude; but as the magnetic pole passes onward, the aurora xvill be seen father south in the opposite hemisphere and farther north than this, thus favoring each northern country in tarn xvith its beautiful j?ffects.