"Magnetic needle" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... violent ("d'une extreme violence"). But as to the other experiment, they allege that M. Arago did not clearly perceive the movement of the table by the mere intervention of the girl's apron, though the other observers did.[17] It is added, that the girl produced no effect on the magnetic needle. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 83, September, 1864 • Various
... was as true as the Pole Star, and she was as false as a magnetic needle in a cargo of loadstone. Dave was as steady and solid as she was fickle and fly-away, and in some way Dave, who never doubted anybody, doubted her. It was the jealousy of his love, perhaps, and maybe it was the ...
— Lost Face • Jack London
... in motion, was first pointed out by Dr. A. D. Bache, whose researches, in conjunction with Lloyd of Dublin, to determine whether differences of longitude could be measured by the observations of small simultaneous changes in the position of the magnetic needle, led to the knowledge of the curious fact, that these changes, which had been traced as simultaneous, or nearly so, in the continent of Europe, did not so extend across ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol. 6, No. 1, July, 1864 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy. • Various
... the most credulous, as not possessing much knowledge of the usual course of nature; and secondly, those are most credulous, whose faculty of comparing ideas, or the voluntary exertion of it, is slow or imperfect. Thus if the power of the magnetic needle of turning towards the north, or the shock given by touching both sides of an electrized coated jar, was related for the first time to a philosopher, and to an ignorant person; the former would be less ready to believe them, than the latter; as ...
— Zoonomia, Vol. II - Or, the Laws of Organic Life • Erasmus Darwin
... the symptoms were abroad which provide disaffection with its opportunity; and in the natural confusion which attended the revolt from the papacy, the obligations of duty, both political and religious, had become indefinite and contradictory, pointing in all directions, like the magnetic needle ...
— The Reign of Henry the Eighth, Volume 1 (of 3) • James Anthony Froude
... had carried the crusaders to Asia were now used to explore new coasts and harbors. Navigators learned to be bolder. A navigator of Genoa—a city made by the commerce which the Crusades necessitated—crosses the Atlantic Ocean. As the magnetic needle, which a Venetian traveller brought from Asia, gave a new direction to commerce, so the new stimulus to learning which the Grecian philosophy effected led to the necessity of an easier form of writing; and printing appeared. ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume V • John Lord
... 1820, discovered the action of a voltaic current on a magnetic needle; and immediately afterwards the splendid intellect of Ampere succeeded in showing that every magnetic phenomenon then known might be reduced to the mutual action of electric currents. The subject occupied all men's thoughts: and ...
— Faraday As A Discoverer • John Tyndall
... 301: The magnetic needle had been used by the mariners of western and northern Europe since the end ...
— The Discovery of America Vol. 1 (of 2) - with some account of Ancient America and the Spanish Conquest • John Fiske
... doctor admired all these cosmic phenomena, to which his companions paid but little attention; he had noticed, besides, that their appearance always preceded disturbances of the magnetic needle, and he was preparing some observations on the subject which he intended for Admiral Fitz-Roy's ...
— The Voyages and Adventures of Captain Hatteras • Jules Verne
... thermic condition. Law of the increase of heat with the increase of depth — p. 160, 161 and note. Magnetism electricity in motion. Periodical variation of terrestrial magnetism. Disturbance of the regular course of the magnetic needle. Magnetic storms; extension of their action. Manifestations of magnetic force on the earth's surface presented under three classes of phenomena, namely, lines of equal force (isodynamic), equal inclination (isoclinic), and equal deviation (isogonic). Position of the ...
— COSMOS: A Sketch of the Physical Description of the Universe, Vol. 1 • Alexander von Humboldt
... first to discover that the earth is a great magnet, and he not only gave the name of "pole" to the extremities of the magnetic needle, but also spoke of these "poles" as north and south pole, although he used these names in the opposite sense from that in which we now use them, his south pole being the extremity which pointed towards the north, and vice versa. He was also ...
— A History of Science, Volume 2(of 5) • Henry Smith Williams
... total amount of work transmitted by shafting or belting from one part of a factory to another. An electric current meter may be made by giving inclination to the disk, which is for this purpose made exceedingly small and delicate, by means of a heavy magnetic needle deflected by the current. This, like Edison's, is a direction meter; but a meter in which no regard is paid to the direction of the current can be made by help of an iron armature of such a shape that the force with which it is attracted to fill the space between the poles of an electro-magnet ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 315, January 14, 1882 • Various
... one of my lectures. In a day or two the symptoms of eruption were most encouraging. She has already quarrelled with all her family,—accusing her father of bigamy, her uncle Benoni of polytheism, her brother Zeno C. of aneurism, and her sister Eudoxy Trithemia of the variation of the magnetic needle. If ever hopes of seeing a perfect case of Primitive Christian were well-founded, I think we ...
— The Function Of The Poet And Other Essays • James Russell Lowell
... age, stating, that he had prepared an instrument, which might be called an epitome or miniature of the terraqueous globe, showing, with the assistance of tables, constructed by himself, the variations of the magnetic needle, and ascertaining the longitude, for the safety of navigation. It appears that this scheme had been referred to sir Isaac Newton; but that great philosopher excusing himself on account of his advanced age, all applications ...
— Dr. Johnson's Works: Life, Poems, and Tales, Volume 1 - The Works Of Samuel Johnson, Ll.D., In Nine Volumes • Samuel Johnson
... turned the light of these discoveries upon the darkest physical phenomenon of that day. Arago had discovered in 1824, that a disk of non-magnetic metal had the power of bringing a vibrating magnetic needle suspended over it rapidly to rest; and that on causing the disk to rotate the magnetic needle rotated along with it. When both were quiescent, there was not the slightest measurable attraction or repulsion exerted between the needle and the disk; still when in motion the disk was competent ...
— Little Masterpieces of Science: - Invention and Discovery • Various
... El Kutb ([Arabic]) and the west El Maghib ([Arabic]). The western points are named like the eastern. North-east, for instance is Ayyuk el Matlai; north-west, Ayyuk el Maghibi. Finally, the Dayrah Jahi is when the magnetic needle points due north. The Dayrah Farjadi (more common in these regions), is when the bar is fixed under Farjad, to allow for variation, which at Berberah is about 4o ...
— First footsteps in East Africa • Richard F. Burton
... proportional to the intensity of the field, and the curves that are traced show their direction. To finish the definition of the field, it remains to determine the direction of these lines of force. Such direction is, by definition, and conventionally, that in which the north pole of a small magnetic needle, free to move in the field, would travel. It results from this definition that the lines of force issue from the north pole of a magnet and re-enter the south pole, since the north pole of a magnet repels the north pole of a needle, ...
— Scientific American Supplement, Vol. XIX, No. 470, Jan. 3, 1885 • Various
... the history of the world has there been so rapid a development of an occult science. Prior to 1819 very little was known in regard to magnetism and electricity. During that year Oersted discovered that an electric current would deflect a magnetic needle, thus showing that there was some relationship between electric and magnetic force. A few months later, Arago and Sir Humphry Davy, independently of each other, discovered that by coiling a wire around a piece of iron, ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 717, September 28, 1889 • Various
... study of electricity, for example, let the student try to remember the position a magnetic needle will take when placed below or above a conductor carrying a current which flows in a known direction. Without experiment there are nine chances of forgetting to one of remembering; but let the student try the experiment, ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 794, March 21, 1891 • Various
... the mind travel back, and consider what was happening about that time. Just two years before the news had flashed on the philosophical and scientific world that Oersted, a Danish philosopher, had caused a deflection of the magnetic needle by the passage near it of an electric current. The relation between the two forces was then and there confirmed by separate observations all over the civilized world. This discovery probably created more interest at that time than Professor Einstein's recent ...
— A Psychiatric Milestone - Bloomingdale Hospital Centenary, 1821-1921 • Various
... place in the vital currents of Maurice Kirkwood's system was as simple and solid a fact as the change in a magnetic needle when the boreal becomes the austral pole, and the austral the boreal. It was well, perhaps, that this change took place while he was enfeebled by the wasting effects of long illness. For all the long-defeated, disturbed, perverted ...
— A Mortal Antipathy • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... pressing her hot oval cheek against the wet panes; "I reckon I was mistaken. You're sure," she added, looking resolutely another way, but still trembling like a magnetic needle toward Lance, as he moved slightly before the fire, "you're sure you'd like me to ...
— Frontier Stories • Bret Harte
... weighed with a light wind from the northward, and was towed out to sea by our boats. The day proving calm, we employed it in swinging the Hecla, in order to obtain the amount of the deviation of the magnetic needle, and to fix afresh the iron plate for correcting it. On the following morning, the wind being southerly, the pilots came on board, and the Hecla weighed to run through the north passage; in doing which she grounded on a rock lying directly in the channel, and having only thirteen feet upon ...
— Journal of the Third Voyage for the Discovery of a North-West Passage • William Edward Parry
... larger or more complicated animals should be thus produced; which have acquired their present perfection by successive generations during an uncounted series of ages. Add to this, that the want of analogy opposes the credibility of all new discoveries, as of the magnetic needle, and coated electric jar, and Galvanic pile; which should therefore certainly be well weighed and nicely investigated before distinct credence is given them; but then the want of analogy must at length yield to ...
— The Temple of Nature; or, the Origin of Society - A Poem, with Philosophical Notes • Erasmus Darwin
... eggs in Cairo; a tree that produces "wool" of which clothing is made, that is to say the cotton-plant; a country of Asia where it is a mark of nobility for the women to have tiny feet, on which account they are bandaged in their infancy, that they may only grow to half their natural size; the magnetic needle which points out the north to mariners; the country of the five thousand islands (Oceania); the roundness of the earth, which is such that the inhabitants of the Antipodes have their feet directly opposite to ...
— A Literary History of the English People - From the Origins to the Renaissance • Jean Jules Jusserand
... Europe. Little damage was done, but those having offices in tall buildings had an unpleasant experience which they will not soon forget. A peculiar phenomenon accompanying this seismic disturbance was the variation of the magnetic needle by over eighty degrees from north to east and an extraordinary rise and fall of the barometer. All wireless communication had to be abandoned, owing to the ionizing of the atmosphere, and up to the time this edition ...
— The Man Who Rocked the Earth • Arthur Train
... the soul, Like the magnetic needle to the Pole; But what were that intrinsic virtue worth, Suppose some fellow with more zeal than knowledge, Fresh from St. Andrew's college, Should nail the conscious needle to the north? I do confess that I abhor and shrink Prom schemes, with a ...
— The Humourous Poetry of the English Language • James Parton
... for measuring static electricity, differing from a galvanometer, which measures a current in a wire that acts on the magnetic needle ...
— Electricity for Boys • J. S. Zerbe
... seemed to describe a big loop, I had left it three days before, seeing plainly by the conformation of the country that we should strike it again sooner or later. We were marching once more by compass. My men, who had no faith whatever in the magnetic needle, were again almost paralysed with fear that we might not encounter the stream again. A thousand times a day they accused me of foolishness in leaving the river, as they said it would have been better to follow ...
— Across Unknown South America • Arnold Henry Savage Landor
... with the compass had shown the magnetic needle to differ from itself sometimes as much as six, and even seven degrees, in or very near the same place, and the differences appeared to be subject to regular laws; but it was so extraordinary in the present advanced state of navigation, that they should not have been before discovered and ...
— A Voyage to Terra Australis • Matthew Flinders
... fluid mass with the iron in it, occasions it to perform fewer revolutions than the crust of solid earth over it, and thus it is gradually left behind, and the place where the floating iron resides is pointed to by the direct or retrograde motions of the magnetic needle. This seems to have been nearly the opinion of Dr. Halley ...
— The Botanic Garden - A Poem in Two Parts. Part 1: The Economy of Vegetation • Erasmus Darwin
... obtained from the bottom, in the vicinity of our anchorage, revealed some shells of foraminifera. The density of the sea water, and the dip of the magnetic needle were ascertained here, as well as at other points in the Arctic; and as the observations are entirely new, I give the results in the accompanying tables. The water densities are from observations of Mr. F.E. Owen, Assistant ...
— The First Landing on Wrangel Island - With Some Remarks on the Northern Inhabitants • Irving C. Rosse
... occurred more than a century earlier. Tiraboschi, who investigates the matter with his usual erudition, passing by the doubtful reference of Guiot de Provins, whose age and personal identity even are contested, traces the familiar use of the magnetic needle as far back as the first half of the thirteenth century, by a pertinent passage from Cardinal Vitri, who died 1244; and sustains this by several similar references to other authors of the same century. ...
— The History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella The Catholic, V2 • William H. Prescott
... interpreted by contraries, a process of which the great Tycho Brahe is said to have availed himself in the case of the little Lackwit, who used to sit and mutter at his feet while he was studying. A mind of this sort we may compare to a magnetic needle, the poles of which have been suddenly reversed by a flash of lightning, or other more obscure accident of nature. It may be safely concluded, that to those whose judgment or information he respected, Sir Alexander Ball did not content himself with giving access and attention. No! ...
— Confessions of an Inquiring Spirit etc. • by Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... of the human mind. Its value has no doubt been exaggerated, but it is not a falsehood. Some Orientals who are skilled in it perform prodigies. All travellers have vouched for its existence, and at the Palais Royal M. Dupotet moves with his finger the magnetic needle. ...
— Bouvard and Pecuchet - A Tragi-comic Novel of Bourgeois Life • Gustave Flaubert
... cause general alarm. The detonations were accompanied by tremblings of the ground, of buildings and various objects contained in dwellings; but it was generally admitted that these did not proceed from earthquake shocks, but from atmospheric vibrations. No deviation of the magnetic needle was observed at the Meteorological Institute of Batavia; but a vertical oscillation was apparent, and persons who listened with the ear placed on the ground, even during the most violent detonations, could hear no subterranean ...
— Volcanoes: Past and Present • Edward Hull
... current, then, is transformed into heat and light. The light acts in every direction around about, first visibly as light, then invisibly as heat and electric current. Hold a magnet near it. If the magnet is weak and movable, in the form of a magnetic needle, the beam of light will cause it to deviate; if it is strong and immovable, it will in turn cause the beam of light to deviate. AND ALL THIS FROM A DISTANCE, ...
— Genuine Mediumship or The Invisible Powers • Bhakta Vishita
... Increasing interest is manifested in the mountainous icebergs, and marvelous speculations are indulged in concerning the earth's center of gravity, the cradle of the tides, where the whales have their nurseries, where the magnetic needle goes mad, where the Aurora Borealis illumines the night, and where brave and courageous spirits of every generation dare to venture and explore, defying the dangers of ...
— The Smoky God • Willis George Emerson
... America; sought service as a navigator, first in Spain then in England, but failed; returned to Spain; attempted under Charles V. to plant colonies in Brazil with no success, for which he was imprisoned and banished; was the first to notice the variation of the magnetic needle, and to open up to England trade with ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... nations still wear the skin of the Kingfisher about their persons, as a protection against both moral and physical evils; the feathers are used as love-charms; and it is believed, that, if the body of the Kingfisher be evenly fixed upon a pivot, it will turn its head to the north, like the magnetic needle. ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, Issue 17, March, 1859 • Various
... counsel and sympathy, without yielding some response? and what woman could have helped bowing her head to that rebuke of her over-confident judgment, coming as it did from one who in the same breath appealed to that judgment as final? Ratcliffe, too, had a curious instinct for human weaknesses. No magnetic needle was ever truer than his finger when he touched the vulnerable spot in an opponent's mind. Mrs. Lee was not to be reached by an appeal to religious sentiment, to ambition, ...
— Democracy An American Novel • Henry Adams
... will not be out of place here to recall Ampere's ingenious rule for remembering the direction in which a current urges the pole of a magnetic needle. "Suppose a man swimming in the wire with the current, and that he turns so as to face the needle, then the north pole of the needle will be deflected toward his ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 324, March 18, 1882 • Various
... the accuracy and completeness of magnetic observations which was obtained by the new method, opened up fields of research which were hardly suspected to exist by those whose observations of the magnetic needle had been conducted in a more primitive manner. We must reserve for its proper place in our course any detailed description of the disturbances to which the magnetism of our planet is found to be subject. Some of these disturbances are ...
— Five of Maxwell's Papers • James Clerk Maxwell
... principle enunciated by Ampere—that is to say, the current was sent into the line by completing the circuit of the battery with a make and break key, and at the other end it passed through a coil of wire surrounding a magnetic needle free to turn round its centre. According as one pole of the battery or the other was applied to the line by means of the key, the current deflected the needle to one side or the other. There were five separate circuits actuating five different needles. ...
— Heroes of the Telegraph • J. Munro
... finished his observations, which referred chiefly to the magnetic needle, with all the tranquillity of a doctor in his study, Gay-Lussac descended to the earth between Rouen and Dieppe, eighty leagues ...
— Wonderful Balloon Ascents - or, the Conquest of the Skies • Fulgence Marion
... a Magnet. The magnet best known to us all is the compass needle, but for convenience we will use a magnetic needle in the shape of a bar larger and stronger than that employed in the compass. If we lay such a magnet on a pile of iron filings, it will be found on lifting the magnet that the filings cling to the ends in tufts, but leave it almost bare in the center (Fig. 222). The points of attraction at ...
— General Science • Bertha M. Clark
... transplanted pieces were tatooed the letters of the alphabet; so that, when a communication was to be made, either of the persons, though the wide Atlantic rolled between them, had only to prick his arm with a magnetic needle, and straightway his friend received intimation that the telegraph was at work. Whatever letter he pricked on his own arm pained the same letter on the arm ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds • Charles Mackay
... frequently violent, according to the depression of the barometer, it is not always so. According to the theory, the storm will be violent, ceteris paribus, on a line of low barometer, but may still be violent, when the contrary obtains. Another fact is the disturbance of the magnetic needle during a storm. Storms are also preceded generally by a rise in the thermometer, and succeeded by a fall; also by a fall in the barometer, and succeded by a rise. It is also well known, that hurricanes are unknown at the equator, ...
— Outlines of a Mechanical Theory of Storms - Containing the True Law of Lunar Influence • T. Bassnett
... of magnetism, the earth itself is considered to be a magnet with two poles," replied Raed. "These poles attract and repel the corresponding poles of a magnetic needle, just as another large needle would. The nearer we get up to the north magnetic pole of the earth, the more the pole of our needle is pulled down toward it. We're not such a great distance from it now. What's our latitude ...
— Left on Labrador - or, The cruise of the Schooner-yacht 'Curlew.' as Recorded by 'Wash.' • Charles Asbury Stephens
... using the deflection of a magnetic needle by an electric current passing through a wire as a means of conveying intelligence was quickly grasped by those who were striving for a telegraph. Experiments with spark and chemical telegraphs were superseded by efforts with this new discovery. Ampere, acting upon the ...
— Masters of Space - Morse, Thompson, Bell, Marconi, Carty • Walter Kellogg Towers
... expelled. The Christian bishopric was swept away, and left no trace; but a book of the younger Polo, describing the wealth of China, gave rise to marvellous results. Together with the magnetic needle, which originated in China, it led to centuries of effort to open a way by sea to that far-off fairyland. It was from Marco Polo that Columbus derived his inspiration to seek a short road to the far East by steering to the West,—finding ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume XIV • John Lord
... indeed, these humble folk, because they couldn't help it. And they couldn't help it because there was a man in that chapel who drew them as surely as the North Pole draws the magnetic needle. And he drew them because there was Something in him that would not be denied, Something that called to their tired and thirsting spirits, called and comforted. It was not possible to say what that Something was; but this man had it, and it was very rare. And that tall daughter of his, who rarely ...
— Boy Woodburn - A Story of the Sussex Downs • Alfred Ollivant
... model of an iron bridge, with which he supposes a single arch of four hundred feet, may be made. It has not yet arrived in Paris. Among other projects, with which we begin to abound in America, is one for finding the latitude by the variation of the magnetic needle. The author supposes two points, one near each pole, through the northern of which, pass all the magnetic meridians of the northern hemisphere, and through the southern, those of the southern hemisphere. ...
— The Writings of Thomas Jefferson - Library Edition - Vol. 6 (of 20) • Thomas Jefferson
... rebellion against life. Without knowing why, you chafe and fret in their presence. You lose your bearings on life and its problems. Your moral compass is disturbed and unsatisfactory. It is made untrue in an instant, as the magnetic needle of a ship is deflected when it passes near ...
— The Majesty of Calmness • William George Jordan
... globe. We have wet, dry, cold, and warm years, but they are never general. The kind of season which prevails in one country is often quite reversed in another perhaps in the adjacent one. Not so with our auroral displays. They are universal on both sides of the globe; and from pole to pole the magnetic needle trembles during their continuance. Some authorities are of opinion that these eleven-year cycles are subject to a larger cycle, but sun-spot observations have not existed long enough to determine this point. ...
— Men of Invention and Industry • Samuel Smiles
... in dates only, but in more memorable points, dances about at a sad rate; interior agitations and tremulous shrill feelings shivering her this way and that, and throwing things topsy-turvy in one's recollection. Like the magnetic needle, shaky but steadfast (AGITEE MAI CONSTANTE). Truer nothing can be, points forever to the Pole; but also what obliquities it makes; will shiver aside in mad escapades, if you hold the paltriest bit of old ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XI. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... Judson family. Or what if he is hunting for an heir on the Haygarth side?" asked the Captain, with a very close watch upon Mr. Sheldon's face. Let the stockbroker be never so skilful a navigator of the high seas of life, there was no undercurrent, no cross trade-wind, no unexplained veering of the magnetic needle to the west, in the mysteries whereof the Captain was not also versed. When Columbus wanted to keep his sailors quiet on that wondrous voyage over an unknown ocean to the Western world, the diplomatic admiral made so bold ...
— Charlotte's Inheritance • M. E. Braddon
... of the magnetic needle, we found, as usual, our compasses differ among themselves, sometimes near 2 deg.; the same compass too, would sometimes make nearly this difference in the variation on different days, and even between the morning and evening of the same day, when our change of situation ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 14 • Robert Kerr
... invented for the Portuguese, a clumsy astronomical ring of three feet in circumference—was still the chief machine used for ascertaining the latitude, and on shipboard a most defective one. There were no logarithms, no means of determining at sea the variations of the magnetic needle, no system of dead reckoning by throwing the log and chronicling the courses traversed. The firearms with which the sailors were to do battle with the unknown enemies that might beset their path were rude and clumsy to handle. The art of compressing and condensing provisions ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... wound on her arm; and after a brief space, cried out with wonder—"In truth I feel the pressure now of itself." Whereupon, at the command of the magister, she threw up her wide sleeve (for she still wore the magic robe), and placed the little box with the magnet on her arm, directing the magnetic needle, with a fine stick, to the ...
— Sidonia The Sorceress V2 • William Mienhold
... they might guide themselves by the sun during the day, and by the pole-star at night, but if once the sky was overcast, they would become entirely at a loss for their bearings. Hence the discovery of the polar tendency of the magnetic needle was a necessary prelude to any extended voyages away from land. This appears to have been known to the Chinese from quite ancient times, and utilised on their junks as early as the eleventh century. The Arabs, who voyaged to Ceylon and Java, appear to have learnt its use from ...
— The Story of Geographical Discovery - How the World Became Known • Joseph Jacobs
... before (Fig. 14), carry a suspended magnetic needle over the field. It will tend to place itself parallel to the lines of force, with the N pole in such a position that, if the current passes clockwise as you look upon the plane of the loop, it will be drawn into the loop. Reversing the position of the needle ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 643, April 28, 1888 • Various
... used at sea, it had been employed by the Chinese to direct the course of their caravans across the desert. For this purpose a figure, placed in a waggon which led the caravan, was so constructed that the arm and hand moved with perfect freedom, the magnetic needle being attached to it; the hand, however, pointed to the south, the negative end being fixed in it. The Chinese also used a needle which was freely suspended in the air, attached to a silken thread, and by this means they ...
— How Britannia Came to Rule the Waves - Updated to 1900 • W.H.G. Kingston
... were bound for the Klondyke. Every creature in the North-west was bound for the Klondyke. Men from the South too, and men from the East, had left their ploughs and their pens, their factories, pulpits, and easy-chairs, each man like a magnetic needle suddenly set free and turning sharply to the North; all set pointing the self-same way since that July day in '97, when the Excelsior sailed into San Francisco harbour, bringing from the uttermost regions at the top of the map close ...
— The Magnetic North • Elizabeth Robins (C. E. Raimond)
... (from Gr. a-, privative, and gonia, an angle), the term given to the imaginary lines on the earth's surface connecting points at which the magnetic needle points to the geographical north and south. (See ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... toward camp and John Thornton. He broke into the long easy lope, and went on, hour after hour, never at loss for the tangled way, heading straight home through strange country with a certitude of direction that put man and his magnetic needle ...
— The Call of the Wild • Jack London
... annoyances of all sailing-masters in the Arctic regions is the sluggish action of the magnetic needle as they approach the magnetic pole, and it was a difficulty from which we were not exempt. The land all looks so much alike that even when running in plain sight of it it requires the greatest familiarity with the principal ...
— Schwatka's Search • William H. Gilder |
