Abstract
THE Astronomer Royal was kind enough to show me the permanent photographic records of earth currents during the great magnetic storm on February 20–21, and they indicated so unmistakably such rapid and violent alternations, that I supplied our principal relay stations with telephones and with instructions to insert them in circuit whenever they observed indications of disturbances. This happened on March 30–31, during the display of the Aurora Borealis. Mr. Donnithorne, in Llanfair P.G., Anglesea, reports:— “At 2.0 a.m. (Saturday) the telephone receiver was again tried, and then twangs were heard as if a stretched wire had been struck, and a kind of whistling sound. The strength of the earth current was 17˙7 milliampères.” Mr. Miles, in Lowestoft, reports:— “Noise on 408 (Liverpool-Hamburg) wire seemed like that heard when a fly-wheel is rapidly revolving,” and “sounds in telephone appear like heavy carts rumbling in the distance.” Mr. Scaife, in Haverfordwest, reports:— “March 31, 2.5 a.m. Earth currents on all wires; wires completely stopped.… Peculiar and wend sounds distinctly perceived, some highly-pitched musical notes, others resembling murmur of waves on a distant beach.… The musical sounds would very much resemble those emitted by a number of sirens driven at first slowly, then increased until a screech is produced, then again dying away. Duration of each averaged about twenty seconds.” These experienced observers, situated at three distant points, and perfectly acquainted with the ordinary inductive disturbances on telephone circuits, simultaneously observed and independently recorded their own impressions of peculiar sounds exerted in telephones by very rapid alternations or pulsations of currents which accompanied or were consequent on sun-spots, earth currents, and the Aurora Borealis.
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PREECE, W. Earth Currents. Nature 49, 554 (1894). https://doi.org/10.1038/049554b0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/049554b0
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