In this region the compass is of no use to
the traveller or the navigator. The point is called the Magnetic
Pole. Its position has been located several times by scientific
observers. The best determinations made during the last eighty
years agree fairly well in placing it near 70 degrees north
latitude and 97 degrees longitude west from Greenwich. This point
is situated on the west shore of the Boothian Peninsula, which is
bounded on the south end by McClintock Channel. It is about five
hundred miles north of the northwest part of Hudson Bay. There is
a corresponding magnetic pole in the Antarctic Ocean, or rather on
Victoria Land, nearly south of Australia. Its position has not
been so exactly located as in the north, but it is supposed to be
at about 74 degrees of south latitude and 147 degrees of east
longitude from Greenwich.
The magnetic poles used to be looked upon as the points towards
which the respective ends of the needle were attracted. And, as a
matter of fact, the magnetic force is stronger near the poles than
elsewhere. When located in this way by strength of force, it is
found that there is a second north pole in northern Siberia. Its
location has not, however, been so well determined as in the case
of the American pole, and it is not yet satisfactorily shown that
there is any one point in Siberia where the direction of the force
is exactly downward.
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