REPORT

on the observations carried out on May 4–9, 1910, at the Tomsk Technological Institute of EMPEROR NICHOLAS II and the IMPERIAL Tomsk University in connection with the expected passage of the Earth through the tail of Halley’s comet.

B. P. Weinberg.

In the first half of April 1910, reports began to appear in the newspapers that cooperation was being organized among various observatories and higher schools for magnetic, electrical, and optical observations in connection with the expected passage, on May 6, of the Earth through the tail of Halley’s comet.

However modest the resources of the physical laboratory of the Institute were, it could not remain indifferent to this news; and its staff, which at that time—owing to the departure of V. S. Titov and A. V. Ignat'ev—consisted of B. P. Weinberg, V. L. Dudetsky, and I. I. Sidorov, decided, without waiting for special invitations or notices, which because of Tomsk’s remoteness might be considerably delayed, to draw up a program of possible observations at their own risk. Prof. of chemistry of Tomsk University P. P. Orlov, who had worked extensively on questions of air ionization and radioactivity, also took part in the discussion of this question.

It was decided, in addition to the usual meteorological observations at the meteorological station attached to the Institute’s physical laboratory, to attempt to set up the following observations:

1) on variations of terrestrial magnetism, which was of particular interest in view of the fact that Tomsk lies almost halfway between the Ekaterinburg and Irkutsk magnetic observatories;
2) on the potential gradient of the atmospheric electric field;
3) on the ionization of atmospheric air;
4) actinometric observations;
5) photographing of the solar spectrum;
6) meteorological observations in the upper layers of the atmosphere by means of kites.

The Easter holidays that had begun, and the ongoing regular work of the participants, slowed the preparations for these observations, for many of which even the combined resources of the physical laboratories of the Institute and the University were insufficient. Meanwhile—in the twenties of April—a circular appeal¹ from the Nikolaev Main Physical Observatory was received, in

¹ Addressed to the nonexistent “meteorological observatory of Tomsk University.”

in which were indicated those observations that it was intended to carry out at the Konstantinov Magnetic and Meteorological Observatory in Pavlovsk¹, and where it was proposed, for the possible coordination of the work of this observatory with the work of other scientific institutions, to provide it with information about the work planned by us. I note, as a curious detail, that the program of observations worked out at the meeting of March 24 of the Physical Section of the Russian Physico-Chemical Society, jointly with the Meteorological Commission of the Imperial Russian Geographical Society, and printed in the current issue of the Journal of the R. Ph.-Ch. Society, was received in Tomsk on May 6.

The information about the observations planned in Pavlovsk prompted an attempt to arrange photographic registration on a rapidly rotating drum, but this attempt remained only an attempt, in view of the mass of work involved in setting up the unifilar and especially the bifilar, in installing them, in preparing a winch for launching kites, in assembling the kites, in correcting and adjusting the Martens spectrograph, and in attempts to adjust the installation with the Rowland grating.

After classes resumed at the Institute and the University following the Easter holidays, I sent appeals to the students of these higher educational institutions asking them to enroll among the participants in the planned observations. The number of those who enrolled—despite the examination season—exceeded expectations, and this made it possible, with a light heart, to abandon the photographic registration of magnetic variations, replacing it by frequent visual observations with a large (6–7 m.) distance between the mirror and the scale.

On May 2, in the large physics lecture hall of the Institute, a meeting was held of all persons who had agreed to take part in the planned observations, as well as of those among the instructors of the Institute and the University who kindly agreed to help in directing these observations. At this meeting the general plan of organization was adopted, almost all duty shifts were assigned, arrangements were made as to the time when detailed instructions for each type of observation would be given to the observers, and so forth.

According to the general plan of organization, the observations were to be conducted in three places—in the physical laboratory of the Institute, at a temporary observation point in the University garden, where for this purpose a large area had been set aside and a tent pitched, and in the field between the old camp and the clinic (kite ascents). The physical laboratory of the Institute and the observation point in the University garden were connected by a special telephone line, with the kind assistance of the head of the postal and telegraph district, P. I. Dyatolovich.

Observations at the Institute and in the garden of the University were proposed to be conducted continuously from 6 a.m. on May 4 to 6 a.m. on May 9, i.e. for two days before the day of the presumed passage, during that day, and for two days after it,—in order to determine whether the day of May 6 would differ from the days adjacent to it or not. For general supervision of the course of the work it was agreed that two members of the teaching staff would be on continuous duty (a shift every 6 hours): the “professor on duty for the Institute” and the “professor on duty for the University.” The principal location of the former was designated as the professor’s room in the physical laboratory of the Institute; that of the latter—by kind consent of Prof. A. A. Kulyabko—as the room of the physiological laboratory of the University. The duties were borne by: Ya. P. Arkhipov, N. K. Bogdanovich (†), V. A. Vanyukov, B. P. Veinberg, S. V. Dain, P. L. Dravert, V. D. Dudetskii, N. S. Kastorskii, S. K. Konyukhov, I. K. Kulikovskii, A. A. Kulyabko, A. V. Lavrskii, A. A. Levchenko, V. L. Mal’ev, V. P. Markov, F. E. Molin, P. P. Orlov, P. P. Pilipenko, M. P. Rybalkin, V. F. Semenov, I. I. Sidorov, A. V. Ugarov, and V. V. Khvorov¹.

Under the authority of the professor on duty for the Institute were: a) two (or more) students who conducted actinometric and magnetic observations and were relieved at 4 a.m., 10 a.m., 4 p.m., and 10 p.m.; b) a student on duty for the Institute, replacing observers in the event that those who had signed up were late or failed to appear, etc. (shift at 8 a.m., 4 p.m., and 12 midnight); c) the mechanic of the physical laboratory, A. Kh. Zubov, or the attendant on duty (shift at 7 a.m., 1 p.m., 5 p.m., and 10 p.m.). The duties of the professor on duty for the Institute were: a) to see to the orderly relief of the scheduled observers by the next ones and, in the event that the new shift was more than 1/2 hour late, to replace them with substitutes; b) to see that the scheduled observers relieved one another—in order to avoid excessive fatigue; c) to ensure that at night persons free from observations slept; d) to switch, for the period from 1 a.m. to 8 a.m., the lighting circuit of the physical laboratory from the Institute’s electric station to the battery of accumulators of the physical laboratory of the Institute².

Under the authority of the professor on duty for the University were: a) two (or more) students who conducted observations of atmospheric electricity and air ionization and were relieved at 6 a.m., 12 noon, 6 p.m., and 12 midnight; b) a student on duty for the University (shift at 8 a.m., 4 p.m., and 12 midnight); and c) an attendant on duty (shift at 6 a.m., 12 noon, 6 p.m., and 12 midnight),—and upon him lay duties analogous to those that rested upon the professor on duty for the Institute.

When signing up for duty, the greatest demand was for the watches on the day of May 6, but nevertheless already at the meeting of May 2 the majority of the watches had been distributed, and a repeated call to fill the remaining unoccupied watches filled all the gaps; moreover, for daytime watches and for the watches on May 6, in most cases three and even four persons were signed up instead of two. Also filled were

lists of assistants during the ascent of the kites (5 persons on each shift—from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m., from 3 p.m. to 9 p.m., and from 2 a.m. to 9 a.m. from 5 to 7 May). It is interesting to note that before 6 May there were almost no failures to appear for duty; after 6 May, however, when it became clear that nothing extraordinary had happened with the earth vapor, many of those who had signed up did not appear, so that at the hours of changeover the professors on duty often had to exert great efforts to ensure the continuity of the observations. These efforts were in all cases crowned with success¹, thanks both to those among the students who had signed up as being on duty for the Institute or the University, and to the fact that a number of students had placed themselves in advance at the disposal of the organizers and willingly came at their call².

From the general scheme for organizing the observations I shall now pass to a brief description of each kind of observation and of the results obtained.

I. Magnetic Observations.

For these observations there were adapted the wooden housings for the oscillations of a magnet, used in practical classes for the method of determining \(H\) according to Gauss. One of them was used for a unifilar (length of thread 150 cm), the mounting of the magnet being provided below with an aluminum plate immersed in oil. The other housing was used for a bifilar; for this purpose a small wheel was placed at the top instead of a hook, over which a silk thread was passed (the length of each half was 45 cm). The lower ends of this thread were tied to hooks, the distance between which could be changed by a special screw, thereby changing the sensitivity. On these hooks was placed a copper mounting, on which the magnet was laid and below which there was likewise an aluminum plate immersed in oil.

Both instruments were installed³ on wooden brackets at a distance of 5 m from one another along the NS line in a corner room of the basement floor of the Institute’s physical laboratory, where there were almost no iron objects and where the heating pipes were copper.

At a distance of 6–7 m from each of the instruments there stood a telescope with a scale. The observer, when the time by the chronometer (with correction) approached the whole tenth minute, had to sit down at the bifilar telescope, 15 seconds before that time take the first reading and record it; at the time itself start the stopwatch and take the second reading, record it; after another 15 seconds take the third reading and record it, and then—

then proceed to the unifilar tube, where readings were to be taken at 0 min. 45 sec., 1 min. 0 sec., and 1 min. 15 sec. by the second hand. On May 6 the same series of six readings was made not every 10, but every 5 minutes.

The results are shown by solid curves, designated by the letters mm, in Figs. 1 and 2, where, on the same scale—1 division equals 1 cm of the scale of our instruments, which corresponded to 2′.21 of declination and to 0.000189 C.G.S. unit of the horizontal component of the force of terrestrial magnetism—the course of the change in declination in Ekaterinburg is shown by a fine dotted line (curve EE), and in Irkutsk by a coarse dotted line (curve uu)¹. The Tomsk observations have been corrected for the gradual displacement of the zero—in the assumption of linearity of this change after each setting (at the bifilar it was once necessary to interrupt the series of observations and readjust the instrument).

Examination of the curves in Figs. 1 and 2 shows that May 6 was not a “quiet” day in Tomsk magnetically, as, for example, May 4 and 8 were, but that on that day there was no “magnetic storm” either. It is characteristic that on quiet days the course of changes in the horizontal force, and especially in declination, was fairly close at all three points of observation. The disturbance began in Tomsk (and also, apparently, in Ekaterinburg and Irkutsk) toward the end of the night from May 6 to 7 and was also quite noticeable during the night from May 7 to 8.

II. Electrical Measurements

These observations were conducted on an open site in the University garden—opposite the left wing (if one looks at the façade) of the University building, between that building and Sadovaya Street. Here, at a distance of 15 meters from one another, were installed² an Elster and Geitel instrument for determining the ionization of the air and an Ebert instrument for measuring the potential gradient of the atmospheric electric field.

The distance between the burning lamp and the electrograph of the latter instrument varied from 2 meters to 10 meters (when, during rain, the electrograph was moved into a tent).

The procedure of observation was as follows: 15 minutes after the beginning of the turn—say, at t h. 15 m.—the observer began the observations, charging the Elster and Geitel instrument with positive electricity; at t h. 20 m. he made the first reading of the indications of the leaves of the electroscope of this instrument; at t h. 25 m.—the first reading of the electroscope of the Ebert instrument; at t h. 30 m.—the second reading of the electroscope of the Elster and Geitel instrument; at t h. 35 m.—the second reading of the electroscope of the Ebert instrument; at t h. 40 m.—the third reading of the electroscope

the Elster and Geitel instrument. At 1 h 45 m the latter instrument was charged with negative electricity—and the series of observations was again repeated in the same order until the change of observers. In order to keep track of the observation times without overtaxing attention, the observers were provided with an alarm clock with an electrical contact, which they were advised, after each reading, to set 5 minutes ahead. The observers also had, every half hour, to determine the sign of the charge of the electroscope of Ebert’s apparatus, to watch for peculiarities in the coloration of the sun and sky, the duration of the dawn, and to note special celestial phenomena (falling stars, meteors, aurora, luminous clouds, etc.), if any occurred.

The electrical observations did not proceed as smoothly as the magnetic ones. In the Elster and Geitel instrument, several times “the wires became damp”; at times one leaf of the electroscope ceased to deflect; at times it was necessary to clean the sodium in order to improve the drying of the electroscope; at times “a spider got in”; at times the Zamboni pile had to be replaced by another. But in general, if there are doubts as to the correctness of the readings, they concern only the sign of the charge. Moreover, all readings during the night from May 6 to 7 are doubtful, when it was not possible to bring the divergence of the leaves beyond the 10th division—and toward morning even the 5th division—whereas the usual mean reading was sought to be made close to 15, which corresponded to about 140 V. All rates of fall of potential have been reduced to this mean reading; for this I used the calibration of the electroscope carried out by V. S. Titov.

If in this case the percentage of doubtful observations is small, the same cannot be said of the observations of atmospheric electricity. There, things often did not go well with the electroscopes—and they were several times replaced, for inspection and correction, one by another (two, almost identical, were used), since they held the charge poorly. As a result, for example, it proved impossible to make use of the observations from 2 h to 6½ h in the morning of May 6—a period when the conductivity of the air fluctuated strongly. Several values obtained on May 4 before 5¼ h p.m. are doubtful; in these, as was discovered, the right “jaw” was somewhat pushed toward the right leaf. Then there is the reduction of the electroscope readings, doubtfully carried out by me, to the readings when the “jaws are spread to the stop,” for the time from 5½ h a.m. to 1¾ h p.m. on May 8—the time during which the jaws were set at the 10th divisions from zero. Likewise doubtful are the readings from 12 h noon to 7 h a.m. on May 7 and from 10 to 11 h a.m. on May 8, when the instrument stood in the tent.

But in general, despite these shortcomings, the observations of atmospheric electricity give a clear idea that throughout the entire day of May 5 and during the period from 3 to 7 h in the afternoon of May 6 the potential underwent strong and abrupt changes, as is clearly seen in Fig. 3. In this figure the solid line shows the changes in the potential gradient (in volts per meter, for which all electroscope readings have been converted into volts and then the distance of the flame from the surface of the earth has been taken into account), while the dotted line connects the points representing the rates of fall of potential (in volts per minute) in the instrument

Elster and Geitel: for a positive charge these points are denoted by small \(+\) signs, and for a negative charge by small \(-\) signs. For atmospheric electricity I took the mean of both readings, when they were close to one another; likewise, when the rate of fall of the potential in the Elster and Geitel instrument changed little, I took its mean value from the first and third readings.

I shall also note that from 12 o’clock to \(1\frac12\) a.m. on May 6 a thunderstorm was approaching; the same was repeated on the night from May 7 to 8.

III. Actinometric observations.

These observations were carried out¹ on the tower of the physical laboratory of the Institute with Violle’s actinometer, under the general direction of V. D. Dudetsky, and, in view of the fact that the results obtained differ little from what V. D. Dudetsky obtained at another time, they will be included in his work, where he presents the results of all his determinations.

IV. Spectrophotographic observations.

These observations were made with a Martens spectrograph with a quartz prism (the work of Hans Heele) by a student of the Institute, B. V. Nedzvitsky, to whom Prof. Ya. I. Mikhailenko rendered assistance with his directions. The spectrograph was set up at the window of the second room from the corner of Sadovaya and Butkevskaya Sts., in a room on the second floor of the physical laboratory, facing Butkevskaya. Outside the window was placed a heliostat.

After several trial and comparative photographs on May 4 and 5, a series of photographs was made on May 6, and also after that day. Since a cursory comparison of all these photographs revealed no characteristic differences in them, and since similar results were obtained in other places as well, no detailed comparison was carried out. The photographs are kept in the physical laboratory of the Institute.

V. Kite observations.

Owing to the delay in making the reel, we were able to begin winding wire onto it only on May 3, and despite the fact that several people took part selflessly in this work for a full twenty-four hours, only by May 5 was it possible to unwind the wire—

the wire from the skeins and wind it onto the drum. This haste had an extremely unfavorable effect on the progress of the work, since, despite a careful inspection, some twists apparently remained unnoticed—and on May 5, when in a strong wind 9 kites had been raised successively and more than 4 kilometers of wire had been let out, a strong gust of wind, while the wire was being wound back in, tore it, and six kites flew away—fortunately without the meteorograph, which, as a precaution, we had not attached on this first ascent. The failure did not cool the ardor of our young assistants, and in the laboratory work again began to boil: new kites were made from spare parts and new skeins of wire were unwound. Thanks to this, by the morning of May 6 another 8 kites were ready, but calm weather prevented the ascent. The ascent on May 7 ended unsuccessfully—three kites again broke loose and this time carried the meteorograph away with them. All the kites and the meteorograph were, after some time, brought back (the former had flown 15 versts in the direction of the village of Zavarzino, the latter—8 versts in the direction of the Fuchsman farmstead), but the meteorograph’s propeller proved to be broken, and the record blurred by water. Thus, despite all the efforts to arrange the kite ascents¹, no results were obtained. The ascents and the work in the laboratory were directed by B. P. Weinberg, V. D. Dudetskii, S. K. Konyukhov, V. L. Mal’ev, and I. I. Sidorov.

I should also note that student A. F. Bykov² carried out an analysis of the rain that fell on May 6: the amounts of ammonia, nitric and nitrous acids proved, by chance, to be very close to the average from a series of analyses, and no cyanogen was found even in traces.

These are the extremely modest results of that enormous labor which, in Tomsk, was expended by more than a hundred persons to obtain them. The negative character of these results—the absence of any clear influence of the day of May 6 on magnetic, electrical, and optical phenomena—acquires significance only when compared with similar negative results obtained in other places, and constitutes yet another confirmation of them.

I think, however, that for the numerous participants in this joint work, uninterrupted over the course of 5 days, this negative result will not weaken the feeling of duty fulfilled before science, nor the awareness that the Tomsk Technological Institute and Tomsk University did, in this case, everything that lay within their modest powers in order to contribute their feasible share of participation in that grand cooperation which, during these days, embraced physicists and meteorologists in many places across the globe. I cannot fail to note, with a feeling of deep satisfaction, the readiness with which both the instructors and the students of the two higher schools of Tomsk responded to the call for help in this matter, and the selfless work—at times to the point of extreme exhaustion—of many of them.

APPENDIX.

List of observers for the magnetic and electrical observations.

Scheme of the annual course of the Sun.

Geocentric latitude of the Sun.

Atmospheric electricity and solar disturbances.

1. It is very difficult to list all those who worked in this direction. The following names were recorded: P. M. Andreev, A. P. Asatiani, A. G. Bagiryants, F. I. Belekhin, A. A. Belov, A. Ya. Vainer, A. P. Vissarionov, P. I. Vlasenko, L. P. Voinstvenskii, N. R. Volkov, V. D. Gvelesiani, I. V. Gervasiev, F. K. Gromazdkii, K. M. Grekov, K. A. Gurvich, G. D. Dzhaoshvili, V. A. Dmitrevskii, L. M. Dubrovits, L. Ya. Zalyubedskii, N. S. Zakharyants, V. I. Zlatogorskii, I. A. Karakemishchev, L. E. Kolosov, N. Ya. Kruglyak, V. N. Labuntsev, S. S. Lebedev, G. Lyukov, G. I. Leskov, G. A. Mamaev, M. G. Mirzoev, I. B. Mikhailovskii, M. A. Myasnikov, M. V. Naletov, G. Neblazhnikov, A. K. Ogandzhanyants, S. V. Pavlov, A. K. Permyakov, R. B. Polyakov, V. I. Rikhladze, I. I. Salman, M. S. Saribag, V. M. Sevryukov, A. V. Strelkov, D. I. Talykov, K. S. Tush, P. A. Chistyakov, N. I. Shampin, A. A. Shatilov, A. A. Yakovlev; but one may almost certainly recall that, besides them, a number of other persons also helped, such as, for example, V. N. Alfimov, V. I. Bogomolov, N. A. Men’shikov, L. K. Mitskevich, M. M. Mikhailov, A. P. Pudavov, D. I. Ul’rikh. ↩↩↩↩↩↩

2. See his work with Karpov in Izv. T. T. I., vol. 24, 1912. ↩↩↩↩

3. V. D. Dudetskii took the chief part in this. The same instruments were later installed, in the summer of the same year, by B. P. Weinberg in Anos, where, with their aid, variation observations were also conducted in connection with the magnetic measurements of V. D. Dudetskii and I. I. Sidorov in the Altai. ↩