<P> All magnets have two poles, where the lines of magnetic flux enter and emerge . By analogy with the Earth's magnetic field, these are called the magnet's "north" and "south" poles . The convention in early compasses was to call the end of the needle pointing to the Earth's North Magnetic Pole the "north pole" (or "north - seeking pole") and the other end the "south pole" (the names are often abbreviated to "N" and "S"). Because opposite poles attract, this definition means that the Earth's North Magnetic Pole is actually a magnetic south pole and the Earth's South Magnetic Pole is a magnetic north pole . </P> <P> The direction of magnetic field lines is defined such that the lines emerge from the magnet's north pole and enter into the magnet's south pole . </P> <P> Early European navigators believed that compass needles were attracted to a "magnetic island" somewhere in the far north (see Rupes Nigra), or to the Pole Star . The idea that the Earth itself acts as a giant magnet was first proposed in 1600 by the English physician and natural philosopher William Gilbert . He was also the first to define the North Magnetic Pole as the point where the Earth's magnetic field points vertically downwards . This is the definition used nowadays, though it would be a few hundred years before the nature of the Earth's magnetic field was understood properly . </P> <P> The first expedition to reach the North Magnetic Pole was led by James Clark Ross, who found it at Cape Adelaide on the Boothia Peninsula on June 1, 1831 . Roald Amundsen found the North Magnetic Pole in a slightly different location in 1903 . The third observation was by Canadian government scientists Paul Serson and Jack Clark, of the Dominion Astrophysical Observatory, who found the pole at Allen Lake on Prince of Wales Island in 1947 . </P>

Earth's magnetic north pole and geographic north pole