SIR

See also:

• EDWARD

EDWARD

See also:

• SIR EDWARD SABINE (1788-1883)

SABINE (1788-1883)  , English astronomer and geodesist, was born in Dublin on the 14th of October 1788, a scion of a family said to be of Italian origin . He was educated at the Royal Military Academy, Woolwich, and obtained a commission in the royal artillery at the age of fifteen, attaining the rank of major-general in 1859 . His only experience of warfare seems to have been at the siege of Fort Erie (Canada) in 1814 . In early life he devoted himself to astronomy and physical geography, and in consequence he was appointed astronomer to `various expeditions, among others that of Sir J . Ross (1818) in search of the North-West Passage, and that of Sir E . Parry soon afterwards . Later, he spent long periods on the inter-tropical coasts of Africa and America, and again among the snows of Spitzbergen . He was associated with Henry Williams Chisholm and others as a member of the Royal Commission of 1868–1869 for standardizing weights and measures . Sabine was for ten years (1861–1871) president of the Royal Society, and was made K.C.B. in 1869 . He died at East Sheen, Surrey, on the 26th of May 1883 . Of Sabine's scientific work two branches in particular deserve very high credit—his determination of the length of the second's pendulum, and his extensive researches connected with terrestrial magnetism . The establishment of a system of magnetic observatories in various parts of British territory all over the globe was accomplished mainly on his representations; and a great part of his life was devoted to their direction, and, to the reduction and discussion of the observations .

While the

majority of his researches bear on one or other of the. subjects just mentioned, others deal with such widely different topics as the birds of Green-land, ocean temperatures, the Gulf Stream, barometric measurement of heights, arcs of meridian, glacier transport of rocks, the volcanoes of the Hawaiian Islands, and various points of meteorology .