Edward Sabine (1788-1883)

Abstract

... After the Napoleonic wars, he, like many others in the British army and the Royal Navy, found himself underemployed; he chose to pursue scientific studies, notably in ornithology, astronomy, and magnetism. In 1818 he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of London and shortly thereafter found himself appointed astronomer to John Ross's expedition in search of the Northwest Passage. Ross sailed in May on the Isabella, accompanied by William Edward Parry on H.M.S. Alexander. Sabine was far more than the expedition astronomer. He carried out observations in natural history and anthropology, publishing his biological results and an account of the West Greenland Eskimos, including a tribe near Thule previously unknown to Europeans. On 25 July he discovered a new species of gull, the fork-tailed or Sabine's gull, at its breeding station off the west coast of Greenland. He carried out pendulum experiments, significant for acquiring a detailed understanding of the shape of the earth, and he also carried out magnetic observations. Once Ross tied the ships to icebergs while an observatory and tents were set up on shore for Sabine and his companions. On another occasion, the ships were lifted onto ice floes and driven into collision during a storm, which frustrated subsequent attempts to carve out safe docks in the ice field. Sabine and his companions meanwhile landed on Bushnan Island, where they found Eskimo remains. ... His principal scientific activity was in geomagnetism. In 1823 he had been the first to demonstrate the correlation of magnetic variations on a chart. In 1834 he began work on a magnetic survey of Great Britain; his old arctic companion James Clark Ross joined him in the enterprise. In 1835 he led the British Association for the Advancement of Science in urging the government to sponsor an antarctic expedition in search of the south magnetic pole, and further lobbying contributed to the appointment of J.C. Ross, discoverer of the north magnetic pole, as commander of the British antarctic expedition of 1839-1843. Sabine also became the key figure in the establishment of a chain of colonial magnetic observatories, including the Toronto observatory, from which John Henry Lefroy, on Sabine's orders, undertook his marathon magnetic survey of the Canadian Northwest.